


The Detective's Secret and the Mystery of the Dancing Flowers

by jjtaylor



Series: Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency [2]
Category: My Chemical Romance
Genre: Alternate Universe, Ensemble - Freeform, M/M, Supernatural Elements
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-12-20
Updated: 2010-12-20
Packaged: 2017-10-13 20:38:36
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 84,427
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/141510
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/jjtaylor/pseuds/jjtaylor
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Wanted: Replacement Valet for high profile Midnighter household. Must have excellent references, believable reason for leaving former place of employment, all Clan paperwork in order.  Experience in filing, housekeeping, carriage driving, men's grooming, bookkeeping, scheduling. Highly desirable skills include: basic gardening, Daylighter legal practices, first-aid, hand-to-hand combat. Please contact Frank Iero for more information.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Part 1

**Author's Note:**

> Sequel to Gerard Way's (Vampire) Detective Agency. Thanks to ataratah for beta.

> I, Brian1 Schechter, do formally declare my intention to pursue level 5 Archmagister designation in accordance with the traditions of the Order of Ancient Magic.
> 
> The bond of family sorcery has been extended to me by the head of the Way household2,and I do formally declare my intention to familiarize myself with history of the Way house, both the family and the literal house, in accordance with the instructions laid out3, also by the Order of Ancient Magic.  
> 1Middle name redacted  
> 2And believe me it's going to be difficult for me to get used to referring to Gerard in that manner.  
> 3In unnecessary detail  
> 

  
Brendon's voice echoes in the foyer. "Gerard!" he shouts. "Gerard?"

Gerard is hanging upside down, the backs of his legs curled around a thick iron pipe, and his arms dangling so his fingers almost touch the floor. All of the blood has rushed to his face, making it beet red, and he keeps swinging back and forth, like he's trying to curl himself upright and can't quite get the momentum. Frank's standing beside him, ready to unhook him and lower him to the ground at first notice, though Gerard's distracted enough that he seems to have forgotten that he's upside down.

Gerard's looking at a painting on the opposite wall. The painting is also upside down, and stuck that way, despite Frank’s best efforts to turn it around.

"Does it look any different from this angle?" Frank asks, turning his head sideways to try to see for himself.

"Gerard!" Brendon, who called them to the house to investigate matters other than the artwork, is just out of sight around the corner, and has been shouting for a few minutes.

"He's still looking at the painting!" Frank shouts back. He's not taking his eyes off Gerard for moment incase he falls, so whatever Brendon's shouting about is going to have to wait.

"This doesn't make any sense," Gerard says, frustrated, and then the pipe he's hanging from cracks and water starts spitting everywhere and Gerard starts to slip. Frank catches Gerard before he hits the ground, but the impact combined with a renewed burst of water from the pipe knocks them both down.

"Brendon!" Gerard shouts as Frank attempts to steer Gerard away from the stream of the water. Brendon comes running in, and then stops to take in the soaked Gerard, Frank, and the carpet. "You said it wasn't a water pipe," Gerard says.

"I said I thought it wasn't a water pipe," Brendon says. "Whatever pipe it is – was - ” he says. “It wasn’t meant to be used as a trapeze. Did you hear me shouting?"

"I can't identify any reason that someone would hang this painting upside down," Gerard says, wiping water from his face, "except perhaps because of a deep misunderstanding of abstract expressionism."

"Listen, about the vampire?” Brendon says.

“You said he was a zombie,” Frank says.

"The neighbor said she was certain that the resident of the house was a zombie that had turned into a vampire," Brendon says, looking a lot like he’s finally admitting something he was hoping he wouldn’t have to bring up.

"A what?" Frank says at the same time Gerard says, "That's impossible."

"That's why I called you," Brendon says.

"Zombies can't turn into vampires, there's nothing in them to turn. You could maybe curse a vampire into acting like a zombie, but it's very clear when they've been vampires first. They don't eat anything, and they're not good for much except posing as doorman or the occasional card dealer."

"What was it the neighbors said they saw?" Frank asks. "Was it a zombie they knew?"

"It was someone new to the neighborhood. Introduced himself as a zombie and a few weeks later the neighbors heard him calling out, "Blaaaaah."

Gerard just looks at Brendon, then at Frank, as if to see if he heard wrong.

"They thought it sounded like 'blood'" Brendon adds.

"Blah?" Frank asks. Brendon nods.

"Maybe he has malaise," Gerard says thoughtfully.

"And then he bit one of them," Brendon adds.

"He bit someone?" Gerard says, suddenly curious, "Where did he bite them?"

"On the neck," Brendon says, like there was any other place, and considering this is a zombie vampire they’re talking about, Frank thought Brendon wasn't far off. "So they went to the Clan Clinic and got screened, and then the Clan Clinic sent an investigation team to the house. This was the only thing they found that had any magical traces," Brendon says, pointing at the painting.

Gerard rushes forward to the painting. "Frank, hold me upside down again."

"Sir?" Frank asks, and they both stare at each other for a tense moment. Until now, Frank's managed not to call Gerard sir in weeks.

"I need to try again," Gerard says, "Just, hold me upside down. By the feet."

"You're too tall," Frank says, "I can try and hold you by the waist."

Brendon is watching them, barely holding back a smirk. The water pouring from the pipe starts to splutter and slow, just as Frank can feel his body temperature starting to drop from being soaked. Then Frank hears something that can’t possibly be the water.

"What was that?" Frank says, and Gerard goes very still.

"Gerard," Brendon whispers, "Frank, I -"

"Shhh," Gerard says.

There's a zombie shambling down the hall at them. He's clearly gone rogue, his eyes cloudy and unfocused, his steps uneven, but he's got a wicked set of teeth and he's coming right at them.

"The zombie vampire, I presume," Gerard says.

"Guys," Brendon says, a little more panicked.

"It's fine," Gerard says. "Let me try and talk to him. Are you or were you ever a vampire?" Gerard asks the zombie. In response to the word 'vampire', the zombie bares his teeth.

"I see," Gerard says. "You ought to know that those are not traditional vampire fangs," Gerard says. He turns to Frank, who smiles widely, revealing his fangs. "You see?" Frank points at his mouth, incase the zombie just thought he was being cheery.

The zombie growls.

"Are you seeking legal representation or Clandestine Code assistance for issues surrounding your Midnighter classification?" Gerard asks.

"Blaaaaaaaah!!" the zombie shouts.

"That doesn't sound like malaise," Frank says.

"Someone quick, get me some ham!" Gerard shouts as the zombie is suddenly moving a lot faster. "Brendon?"

But when Frank turns to look for Brendon, he walks right into Brendon's foot, because Brendon is hovering about five feet in the air.

"Um," Frank says.

"That's what I've been trying to tell you!" Brendon yells, and lifts a little higher in the air.

"Grab him," Gerard says, "Meet me in the kitchen!" and then he dashes off. The zombie shambles after Gerard.

Great, Frank thinks, Gerard's getting deli meat and he's left here with an airborne attorney and bringing up the tail end of a zombie vampire. He's pretty sure this isn't what he thought a partnership in the detective agency would truly be about.

"Why are you floating?" Frank asks Brendon in exasperation.

"I don't know," Brendon says. "It's not like this has ever happened before."

"Kitchen!" Gerard is shouting, and so Frank tugs at Brendon's leg and pulls him along like he's a balloon. Brendon, to his credit, does not complain, just uses his hands to guide himself away from smacking his head against the crown moldings.

Frank and the buoyant Brendon make it to the kitchen just behind the zombie, which is advancing on Gerard, who appears to be almost halfway in the icebox.

"Hit him with something," Brendon says, "But don't let me go!"

Frank scans around the room for something heavy to hit the zombie with, and thinks for a minute he might be able to do something with the wooden butcher block on the counter. He has it in one hand, Brendon's leg in the other.

"Blaaaaaaaaaah!" the zombie says.

"You're certain I can't convince you to come with us to the nearest Clan Office?" Gerard says, muffled from within the icebox.

The zombie advances. Frank lifts the butcher block, ready to strike, and then Gerard slams the icebox door behind him and says, "Frank, wait!"

The zombie lunges at Gerard, mouth going for his neck.

"Gerard, no!" Frank says, but before he can do anything else, the zombie stumbles back from Gerard, a giant piece of ham stuck in its mouth.

"Ggggggggg," the zombie says, backing away, almost sounding pleased.

"Did you just - " Frank says, and Gerard beams at him. "Did you just tie a piece of ham to your neck?"

"I did!" Gerard says gleefully. "I knew he wouldn't take it if I just offered it to him, because if he truly believed he were a vampire, he would feel compelled to bite the neck of his victim."

"So you fashioned an impromptu ham necklace."

"Worked like a charm," Gerard says.

"He's drinking from the ham?" Brendon says. "Hey, hey, don't let go," Brendon says when Frank momentarily forgets that Brendon is still floating.

"Enough at least that it appears to be settling his zombie rage and his hunger rage at the same time," Gerard says.

"Gggggggg," the zombie says, more quietly, and definitely pleased this time.

"Brendon, why aren't you on the ground?" Gerard says. "I thought you checked for traps," he says, to Frank.

"Obviously I missed one," Frank says. Brendon sighs and floats a little higher and Frank has to tug him back down.

"We should go," Gerard says. "Before the zombie runs out of ham. Brendon, I'm sorry, but if you can't stop floating, we're going to have to tie you to the carriage until we get home.

"Great," Brendon says with a sigh.

"Frank, maybe while you're securing him, I can go take another look at the painting?"

"No," Frank says, startling them both. "I mean, maybe you can come back later, once the zombie has been removed."

"Of course," Gerard says, and Frank thinks he's going to be angry because Frank's basically ordering him around on a case, but Gerard just takes a hold of Brendon's other foot and says, "Ok, Brendon, try and hang on."

"To what?" Brendon says. "Is this what every case is like with you?"

"Not every case," Frank says, "Sometimes there are pianos."  


>  **From the Accounting of Events in the Way Household from the Beginning of Known History, by B. Schechter, Sorcerer**
> 
> My first tasks in my role as family sorcerer tonight are indicative of my responsibilities at large. Before dawn, I healed neck wounds on Detective Gerard Arthur Way, Son of Donna, Grandson of Elena, Venerable Keeper of the Way Mansion, Legal Investigative Consultant for the Clandestine Code for Midnighter Rights, Legal Investigative Consultant for the Daylighter Governor's Office, Five-Term Appointed Member of the District Rezoning Board, and Certified Midnighter Gardener4, from a suspected zombie- vampire, a task made more difficult by the hovering of his former valet, Frank Iero.5 I removed a combination floatation and buoyancy spell from a visitor to the household, Mr. Brendon Urie, a task made more complicated by the fact that Mr. Urie, a former Daylighter, three years past had a demon bound to him. Demon-binding magic interferes with all forms of magic, and the complexity of the buoyancy layer laid on top of the floatation spell meant that Mr. Urie had to be tethered to the sofa for an additional half an hour while I removed the spell. Both Mr. Iero and Mr. Way exhibited signs of having recently been immersed in water, and both refused to explain, and Mr. Way was barely convinced by Mr. Iero to change his still wet clothes before running to his office to research what I understood to be a theory on the effect of art therapy on malaise. All of this was complicated by the fact that we are still, as a household, short of a valet.6
> 
> I have reported the rogue zombie (or potential zombie-vampire) to the Clandestine Office of Zombie Affairs.
> 
> 4Hereafter referred to as Gerard.  
> 5 When I argued there was no such thing as a vampire-zombie, Mr. Iero said, "Tell that to the ham." I have not had the time nor the desire to follow up on the meaning of such a comment.
> 
> 6 I did consider having my apprentice, Ms. Salpeter, step into the role, but it would do little to further her magical education, and she's not very tidy.   
> 

  
Gerard's not paying attention again and so he's got his shirt collar folded in and he's trying to put it on with one sleeve backwards. He struggles for a minute and then Frank's there, righting his shirt. "Thank you, Frank," Gerard says.

"You always have trouble with the collar," Frank says fondly.

"I do," Gerard says. "Here, let me help," Gerard says, as Frank's fingers are still cold from being wet and he's fumbling at his own buttons. He hisses in a sharp breath when Gerard's fingers brush over his chest, and their eyes meet. "It's about time I help you get dressed," Gerard says. "Since you always do this for me."

"Because I - " Frank starts to say and Gerard leans in and kisses him as he slips Frank's shirt off his shoulders. Frank runs his cold fingers into Gerard's still damp hair, and Gerard's kissing is going far to warm him up. Gerard slides off Frank's undershirt next, breaking the kiss just to pull it off, and then skidding his hands down Frank's bare back. Frank forgets what he was going to say about how he helped Gerard get dressed because he was his valet, or how Gerard isn't helping Frank get dressed so much as undressing him, but it's lost when Gerard kisses down Frank's neck, sliding his fingers up to his ribs and over his nipples. Gerard's right hand stops over the scar from Ryan's arrow and Frank shivers. Gerard traces a fingernail in a circle around the scar, then presses his fingers to it again and Frank arches into Gerard's hands. It's not that it hurts, but it feels like Gerard is cleansing the memory of the scar and what it means, like he's drawing out the poison each time he touches it so it becomes just like any other mark on Frank's skin.

"Shhhh, Frankie," Gerard says, still touching the scar. "I know, I know," he says, as Frank whimpers with each pass, and then Frank's getting pushed up against the wall and Gerard's undoing Frank's pants and dropping to his knees. "Shhh," Gerard says, sliding his hands over Frank's bare ass, taking Frank's cock in his mouth, and Frank throws his head back as Gerard sucks him.

"Supposed to be," Frank tries to say, but Gerard's mouth is hot and moving fast over him. "Getting." He's not going to last more than a minute like this. Gerard on his knees in front of him always short-circuits his brain, and Gerard's not even teasing. "Dressed," Frank says. "Dressed!" he says again desperately. Gerard makes a hum of agreement which Frank feels in Gerard's throat. "Gee - " Frank says, closing his eyes, body bowing, and then he's coming.

"You're absolutely right," Gerard says, wiping his mouth, standing up, grinning wickedly at Frank, "we're supposed to be getting dressed." He then proceeds to start buttoning up his shirt.

"Oh, no, no, no," Frank says, when he's finally come back to himself. He swipes Gerard's hands away from the buttons of his shirt. "I think our schedule has changed."

 

It's late morning and Frank's finally cleaning up the mess of damp clothes they left on the floor before getting into his coffin when he hears raised voices in the corridor down by the indoor entrance to the greenhouse. He rushes downstairs and then stops, skidding on the carpet, when he sees Alicia, the Fairy who Mikey casually hangs out with like she's not rumored to be running the Seelie Court. She is leaning against the doorframe, propping the greenhouse door open with her foot. The sun curtain is pulled all the way back and sunlight streams in. Frank backs up, even though he's not really that close, he can feel it prickling at his nerves.

"Oh, sorry, Frank," she says, and she takes a step back into the hall, letting the glass door fall closed. A moment later, Gerard follows her.

"Frank?" he says. "Oh my god, did you get burned? I told you to come in," Gerard says sharply to Alicia.

"I am not coming into your greenhouse," Alicia says, like Gerard had just suggested something both offensive and preposterous. Gerard gives her another stern look.

"I'm fine," Frank says. "I heard shouting, so - "

"That was my fault," Alicia says. "I brought up something Gerard doesn't want to talk about."

"I wish you were not still trying to bring it up," Gerard says, tight-lipped. Frank can hear the implied, "in front of Frank."

"I'll go," Frank says.

"It's fine," Gerard says. "Alicia just wanted to know how we were doing after Ryan's attack."

"Oh, I can see how you are," Alicia says. "It's radiating off you. You're even getting some of it on Frank."

Frank looks down at his arms, imagining he's been dusted with something.

"Alicia, please," Gerard snaps.

"Just Fairy talk," Alicia says, turning what Frank imagines she probably thinks is a comforting smile at him. "I think I'll go see if I can find your brother."

"You've never had trouble finding him before," Gerard says.

"Figure of speech," Alicia says, and then she walks off toward the back servant's entrance.

"Frank," Gerard says, tugging the sun curtain back over the door and locking it in place. He looks like he's about to apologize, except that Frank was the one who interrupted what was obviously meant to be a private conversation.

"I'll just go get some sleep," Frank says.

"Alicia means well," Gerard says. "Though her approach leaves something to be desired."

Frank thinks her approach is nothing but suspicious, but the few times he's spoken with Alicia have always left him feeling unsettled, so he has to trust that Gerard knows better than Frank how to tell the difference between creepiness and malice, at least where the Fairy are concerned.

"I'm just going to finish up," Gerard says, gesturing to the greenhouse. "Let's meet in my office after sunset?" Gerard waits until Frank is out of the hall before opening the greenhouse door, though Frank can still feel the sunlight coming in.  
Frank brings Gerard a cup of coffee he'd intercepted from Cortez, and the notes he'd written up about the vampire zombie once the sun has set. Gerard sips the coffee with his eyes closed for a minute, and then what he says shocks Frank so much that Frank has to ask him to repeat himself twice.

"I'm taking you off the case," Gerard says. Each time he sips his coffee, he closes his eyes.

"Why?" Frank says.

"I'm worried about the vampire zombie," Gerard says.

"That's bullshit," Frank says. "What's really going on?"

"Brendon said something that made me uncomfortable," Gerard says.

"What?" Frank demands.

Gerard sighs. "About the way you and I were with each other," Gerard says. "I'm worried about it seeming inappropriate."

"Brendon knows we're," Frank stumbles over the right word, settles on, "together."

"The Clan officers are involved now," Gerard says, "because of the vampire zombie. They'll have to do a full investigation. And I think if they see that you are recovered enough to be working on a case - "

"You think they'll find out about what happened. So let them," Frank says. "No one can prove anything."

"Frank," Gerard says seriously. "I'm not letting anyone investigate you."

"But if we just get it over with, let them investigate, if they just asked me, I could tell them - "

"You won't tell them anything," Gerard says sharply.

"I'm not going to tell them about the Trading."

At the word, Gerard flinches.

"I thought we agreed," he says, teeth gritted, "That we weren't going to talk about it."

They have agreed not to talk about it, after that first night. The danger of people finding out is too great, the trouble they'll get into because it was forbidden for perfectly good reasons but Frank gets the sense that there’s something else, some other reason Gerard doesn't want it brought up. Frank spends a lot of time convincing himself it isn't because Gerard regrets it. After all, everything is fine between them. Except that there is still this imbalance. Being a detective, one as good as Gerard, means he must hold the keys to lots of people's secrets, but it makes Frank feel sometimes like he’s still just Gerard's valet. Like they aren't equal. And maybe they aren't, but Frank wants them to be, eventually. He doesn't want to always feel like Gerard is hiding things from him; he wants to deserve his trust.

"I'm just saying that if the Clan officers investigated and we got it over with - "

"There is nothing," Gerard says stubbornly, "That we're getting over with. You're not telling anyone anything about what happened. And you're off the case." Gerard gestures emphatically and catches the edge of his coffee cup with his elbow and it sloshes coffee onto his files.

Frank is halfway out the door when Gerard says, "Frank, wait."

He almost doesn't stop. "What?" Frank says. "Something else you want to tell me not to do?"

"I'm just worried," Gerard says, kinder but still not giving in. "If people find out too much - "

"I don't understand why you're so - " The word he wants to say is secretive, but he knows saying it like that will only make things worse. “Why you're so worried."

"It'll sort itself out soon enough," Gerard says. "We just have to be careful."

Frank thinks the one person he has to be the most careful around is Gerard, but he can't say that, either.

"I'm going to talk to the Clan officials and give my report this afternoon," Gerard says, "And then I'll follow up with Brendon tomorrow."

"You don't even want me coming to see Brendon?"

"He won't be alone tomorrow," Gerard says.

And ok, Frank doesn't really want to see Ryan Ross anyway. "Ok," Frank says. "I'll....go talk to Pencey about finding us a replacement valet."  
Frank starts a letter to Pencey but before he's done Gerard is shouting for him because he's lost the pressed fern leaf he's been trying to identify and then, like they hadn't been arguing at all, they spend the next fifteen minutes paging through all of the books and files in Gerard's office. The door chimes, and Frank's about to go get it when Schechter declares in his disembodied voice that it's a messenger and he's let them in.

"Is that Pencey already?" Gerard asks. "They've certainly improved their service."

"I haven't even sent the letter yet," Frank says.

"Maybe they've started employing psychics," Gerard says thoughtfully. "How are you tonight, James?" Gerard says when the messenger turns out to be Dewees.

"Hey man," Frank says. When the book he's paging through turns out to have no fern leaves whatsoever, he says, frustrated, "I was sure you left it in the third series of field guides. You had it yesterday."

"I'm sure I had it this morning," Gerard says.

"I've got a message," Dewees says.

"Are you a messenger now full-time?" Frank asks, paging through two more books in quick succession. "I can never keep track."

"Neither can I," Dewees says, then adds, "This is by request only."

"Where's the message?" Frank says. Gerard is paging through a book Frank already has been through, which Frank points out, and he grabs the book from Gerard and sets it in the already done pile. “Give it to Gerard."

"It's for you," Dewees says.

"Actually, Frank isn't a valet anymore," Gerard says, and he puts a book on the done pile without looking at it. Frank picks it up and puts it back into the undone pile. "So you can give the message directly to me."

"I could," Dewees says. "Except it's for Frank."

"I know there are messenger rules," Gerard says, "But honestly, you don't have to go through him."

"The message," Dewees says. "Is for Frank."

Gerard sighs, and looks pleadingly at Frank.

"I think," Frank says, "That Dewees is trying to say the message is for me."

"That's what I said," Dewees says.

"Oh," Gerard says. He places another undone book in the done pile, and Frank catches it. "Do you like being a messenger?" Gerard asks, as Dewees hands over the carefully folded letter to Frank.

"Not particularly," Dewees says, and Frank's not surprised, after the most recently misunderstanding.

"Would you like to be a valet?" Gerard asks.

Frank's reading the message, which is from Jamia. He recognizes her handwriting before he unfolds the paper all the way and then is startled to find that it says only, "I need help moving the couch. Get your lazy ass over here and give me a supernaturally strong hand." It takes him a minute to catch up with what Gerard had just asked.

"Yes," Dewees says. "I've always wanted to be a valet.""

"No you haven't," Frank says.

"Don't you think he'd be a good fit, at least temporarily, to see if he liked it?" Gerard says. "Who's the message from?"

"Jamia," Frank says absently.

"So what are the terms of your employment, do I have to speak with your master?" Gerard asks.

"He's on holiday," Dewees says. "I'm supposed to stay here and keep his affairs in order. But he didn't tell me which affairs and he didn't tell me what order, so, I end up with a lot of free time."

"Excellent," Gerard says. "Frank, can you get him started with Brian?"

"Actually, Jamia needs me to help her move furniture," Frank says, because that's what the note says.

"Oh," Gerard says.

"I can come back tomorrow," Dewees says.

"That's fine," Gerard says distractedly, as he starts going through the books they've already been though once more.

"Ok, yeah, sure," Frank says. "I'm just going to, uh, go see Jamia," he says to Gerard.

"Is everything ok with her?" Gerard asks. "Is there something wrong with her apartment?"

"I'm sure everything's fine," Frank says. "Sometimes she just gets it into her head to move furniture." The thing is, Jamia doesn't get it into her head to move furniture around out of the blue. It's a code they'd set up ages ago, when she wanted Frank to come and scare away her blind dates. Except he's pretty sure she's not on a blind date right now.

"I'll help you find the fern when I get back, ok?" Frank says.

"Of course," Gerard says, and keeps paging through the books.

"Come on, man," Frank says to Dewees. "I'll walk you out.”

"You ok with this?" Dewees asks, once they're outside. "Me taking over your old job?"

"Whatever," Frank says. "It's fine."

"A resounding endorsement."

"Sorry, no, you'll be great," Frank says. "I'm just wondering what the hell Jamia needs."

"Thought you said she was moving furniture,” Dewees says.

"Yeah," Frank says. “Right. Anyway, Gerard's just acting kind of strange."

"Not the only one. Say hi to Jamia," Dewees says, and then wanders off down the street.

Frank had thought there was something special that happened that day that Gerard had hired him to be his valet, but watching what just happened with Dewees stuns Frank with the realization that Gerard apparently offers valet jobs to any messenger who walks into his office.  
There’s a White Hand picket line at the border of the Midnighter area. They’re holding torches and signs and they all look pretty tired, but Frank figures a daytime picket line while most of the Midnighters were asleep wouldn't make much of an impact. Still, they may as well be doing it in the middle of the day for all the Midnighters on the street are paying any attention to them. Frank ignores them, too, as he crosses over into the Daylighter quarter, where it's quiet, such a stark contrast to the Midnighter side of town.

He doesn’t see a single person all the way to Jamia’s front door and it’s starting to get a little eerie. He climbs her stairs, and knocks.

"What are you doing using the door?" Jamia asks, flinging it open. "I was waiting for you at the window."

"Last time you told me to use the door," Frank says, exasperated.

"Well, last time I wasn't sending you a coded note in the middle of the night. I thought the stealth was implied," Jamia sighs. "Come in before my neighbors see you."

Jamia's couch is in exactly the same place it's always been. "So what's going on?" Frank says. "Are you in some trouble?"

"No," Jamia says, and then hesitates for a moment before adding, "Not me." Before Frank can ask who is in trouble, she says, "Gerard didn't make a big deal about you going out?"

"Nah," Frank says, because he’s not going to get into how Gerard hardly seemed to react at all. "I'm sure he'll be working on the art history file I left out for him in a few minutes. But if someone is in trouble, you know that he - "

"I don't want to involve Gerard," Jamia says. "This is complicated and I need - I need to keep it a secret."

"Ok," Frank says, trying not to flinch. Everyone and their fucking secrets. "So are you gonna tell me what's going on, or are you keeping it a secret from me, too?"

Jamia sighs. She looks like she's been worrying for a while. She chews on her fingernail, stops. "Something's up with Lindsey," she says.

"With the Governor? Are you sure we should - "

Jamia quells him with a look. "I just want to find out what it is," Jamia says. "So if it's not a big deal, I can just stop worrying, and I can let it go without making a big fuss and calling in your detective boyfriend."

"Oh," Frank says. "Ok. So what are we doing?"

"We're breaking into her office," Jamia says, so matter of factly that Frank's nodding before it really sinks in what she's said.  
Jamia digs around in her bag as they stand outside the locked door of the Governor's office.

"Wait, so why are we breaking in? Are you getting a bobby pin, or a lock-picking set? I should have asked Gerard if I could borrow his lock-picking set."

"That would have given us away, just a bit, don't you think?" Jamia says distractedly. She manages to find what she's looking for and pulls it from her bag. There's a slight clicking and then the door swings open.

"How'd you do that?" Frank says. Jamia holds up a key, almost touching Frank's nose. He decides its better not to remind her that he can see perfectly well in the dark. "So we're not breaking in."

"We're sneaking in," Jamia says impatiently. Frankie holds up his fists, ready for a fight with whatever might be waiting when he steps in the door. "Don't make me regret bringing you," she says, and grabs his forearms, tugging them back down to his side.

"What if there's some sort of troll defense system? This is the Governor's office!"

"And amazingly, I have been in here before."

"Not in the middle of the night." Jamia gives him a look. "What have you been doing in the Governor's office in the middle of the night?" Frank asks, scandalized.

Jamia sighs. Frank realizes what a stupid thing it is as soon as he says it. "Midnighter political emergencies," Jamia says reproachfully. "And I've been in the Governor's office for enough of them at all hours of the day and night that I'd know if there was some sort of secret defense system, ok, Frankie? Now shut up, I need to concentrate."

Jamia is skimming her hands over a panel on the side of the Governor's desk. "I've seen her put things in here often enough, you'd think I'd have figured out how to open it," Jamia murmurs, mostly to herself.

"Perhaps a light would help," a voice in the dark offers, and Jamia screams. The light flicks on and Lindsey is sitting in an arm chair in the corner.

"Frank, you're wretched at this," Jamia scolds, smacking him across the chest. "I thought you knew something about secret criminal activity. You didn't, like, scan the room?"

"I did! I just wasn't really expecting anyone to be here. And she kind of....blended in with the chair."

"Well thank you, Frank," the Governor says with a smirk. "I've been practicing."

"What are you doing here?" Jamia asks, remarkably composed after her initial shock. "And if you say you could ask me the same thing, I'm going to smack you as well," she says.

"I didn't want to go home," the Governor says. Frank watches as Jamia gives her a stern look. "Although my office isn't that comfortable either, perhaps you feel like going out for some pancakes?'

"Pancakes," Jamia says quietly. Frank watches as they talk in what appears to be the secret language of breakfast.

"I find myself surprisingly hungry," the Governor says.

"Come on," Jamia says to Frank. Lindsey shuts out the light and they walk out in the dark. It’s just like the case yesterday, except instead of facing zombie in the kitchen, he’s going out for pancakes following the daylight Governor. In either case, he hasn’t had much choice in the matter.

 

There's a 24 hour diner that Jamia and Frank used to go to, and Frank's forgotten its warm feeling and the way it smells of maple syrup. The waitress nods easily at them like she gets the Governor in here all the time, which, maybe she does. Lindsey orders pancakes, so they weren't entirely a code. Jamia orders waffles and the waitress offers Frank something from the blood bank if he can show her his Clan Certification, but he politely passes, saying he'll take some coffee with everyone else. Lindsey and Jamia are both quiet until they both speak at the same time. Jamia stops and lets the Governor go first.

"My home is under surveillance," Lindsey says. "And I suspect the office is similarly bugged."

Before Frank or Jamia can respond, the diner door opens with a distracting jingle and a flurry of laughter. Mikey and Alicia are arm in arm and they take a booth in the opposite corner, seemingly without noticing anyone else at all.

"That's bad news," Frank says quietly. He wonders if this is what Alicia meant when she told Gerard she was looking for his brother. To take him on a breakfast date.

"No kidding," Lindsey says, her eyes still on them.

"Thanks for that obviousness," Jamia says, "Of course the Governor being surveilled is bad news."

"I meant Mikey and Alicia," Frank says. "I wonder if Pete knows."

"She should know better," Lindsey says.

"What is the matter with you two? It's none of our business."

There's another burst of laughter. Frank can't shake the feeling that something's very wrong, and the Governor looks equally unsettled.

"Seriously, guys, can we talk about something we ought to be worried over? Like your office being bugged?” She says to Lindsey. "I thought we had security measures protecting against that."

"Someone else clearly has something better," Lindsey says.

The waitress arrives with their food, putting a steaming platter of pancakes in front of the Governor, waffles in front of Lindsey, and she stops and asks Frank again if he wants anything. "We have some good stock," she says, and for the first time, Frank realizes she's also a vampire.

"I'm all set, really, I might have some of Jamia's waffles."

The waitress, having already anticipated this turn of events, sets down a fork in front of Frank, grins and walks off.

"Do you know who it is?" Jamia asks, looking up at the Governor and not her plate while recklessly pouring syrup all over her waffles.

"No," Lindsey says, but it sounds like a lie. Jamia seems to think so, too.

"So how do you know there's someone bugging the office? How do you know someone's watching your home?"

"I saw them," Lindsey says. "Two down the street, one by the house, one carriage parked suspiciously, not the neighbors," Lindsey says, and it sounds rote, like Lindsey's been telling herself this over and over as though to convince herself of the reality of the threat. "And before you ask, there's a different set a night, like a shift."

"We need to call the police," Jamia says.

"Or the Blind Order," Frank says.

"No," Lindsey says to both of them. Frank thinks he sees Alicia look up from her booth out of the corner of his eye, but when he turns, she's looking at her menu.

"Are you going to tell me what this is about?" Jamia says, a moment later, huffy and impatient in a way that Frank's familiar with from years of dating her, and, to his surprise, Lindsey doesn't seem thrown by it either. "How long has this been going on? When were you going to say anything?"

"I didn't need to, did I?" Lindsey says. "You were going to break into my office you were so worried something was happening."

Jamia can't seem to decide whether she's pleased or irritated. "You're acting like it's normal, this surveillance or whatever."

This sobers Lindsey. "No. No, it's not normal. It's actually quite problematic."

"And you know what it's about."

"Possibly," Lindsey says.

"I'm waiting for you to tell me," Jamia says.

Lindsey is silent, and Jamia sighs and shoves her plate of waffles at Frank, who picks up his fork and takes a few bites.

Alicia and Mikey appear to be sharing a plate of French fries. Frank watches as Alicia dips a fry in ketchup, and feeds it to Mikey. Frank snaps back when Jamia snatches her waffles back.

"I hate it when you're coy," Jamia says with a huff, and Lindsey laughs.

"It's about the Mindless Act, undoubtedly," Lindsey says.

"The - " Frank says, trying to see if what Lindsey just said was the same as what he heard.

Jamia cuts in. "The Midnighter Integration and Neutral Daylighter Legal Environmental Services Standard," she says effortlessly. Frank tries to parse it out, can't, and shakes his head. Jamia looks disgusted with him before she returns her plate of waffles to him.

"It's our Clandestine Code," Lindsey says, "If I can pass the thing, it'll transform the way the Daylighter community treats Midnighters from completely barbaric to something approaching equality."

"Is it that good?" Frank asks.

"It had better be," Lindsey says, "I've spent the better part of a year writing it, and the last two months going over it with Patrick Stump and Pete Wentz. Have you ever tried to write anything with Pete Wentz?"

"No," Frank says.

"Don't," Lindsey says.

The mention of Pete makes Frank look over at Alicia and Mikey's table. They're just talking, but Mikey presses a hand over Alicia's. Lindsey turns and looks, too, and catches Frank's eye. They look at each other and Frank wonders how the Governor knows how unsettling that little intimate gesture is.

"Will you stop watching them?" Jamia says, both to Frank and to Lindsey, who startle. "What is your problem?"

"Mikey's seeing Pete," Frank says.

"Alicia doesn't see anyone," Lindsey says.

"So if we're done with gossip," Jamia says, "Can we talk about what we're going to do about the people following you?

"I still think we should tell Gerard," Frank says.

"No," Lindsey says. "I really don't want to involve him."

"See?" Jamia says. Frank thinks if it were a little less obvious, she would have kicked him under the table.

"It might not be a Midnighter issue at all," Lindsey says. "There are certainly plenty of nefarious Daylighters who might do something like this."

It could be a Daylighter, but Frank doesn't really think it's that likely. There's been a werewolf faction that's been vocally anti-Daylighter and who are more than likely the ones responsible for the string of transitional zone arsons. There's always the White Hand, and the torches from their picketing are still fresh in Frank’s mind. He can't help thinking about Fairy with Alicia sitting right across the room, their complicated allegiances and their insistence that they are both a part of and separate from the Midnighter legal system. Frank knows Gerard is better at this than he could ever possibly be, and so he lets Lindsey and Jamia list various different suspects, names Frank's heard before but not anyone he really knows.

They abruptly stop their conversation when the waitress comes and clears their plates, and as Lindsey and Jamia settle the check, Frank watches Alicia get up from her booth with Mikey, give him a playful slap on the head, and leave the diner. Frank takes a last bite of Jamia's waffles and follows them out.

He's just a second too slow. A dark form pelts toward them, knocking Jamia to the ground. He's heading straight for the Governor, and he's fastening his hands on the Governor's throat.

"Tell us the secret," the cloaked figure demands.

"I know quite a few secrets," Lindsey croaks. Frank doesn't hear the figure's response because he finally manages to pry the guy's hands away from the Governor, and Jamia, back on her feet, swings a potted plant at the guy like it's a discus. He takes off at a run, and Frank's about to chase him down when Lindsey's hand on his arm stops him.

"Don't," she says. "I'm fine."

"You're not fine," Jamia says. "You were just attacked! This is serious."

"I know," Lindsey says, and there's a calculating expression on her face. "But I think I have an idea who's been watching me."

"So can I tell Gerard now?" Frank asks.

"He's the last person you can tell," Lindsey says. "The attacker. He said he wanted to know the detective's secret."

Frank's mind goes momentarily blank with shock.

"What does that mean?" Jamia asks.

"I need to think," she says, in a way that makes Frank think she knows a lot more than she's telling, and more than she's going to tell them. Jamia's expression seems to say she's thinking the same thing. "I don’t want to get Gerard involved yet, if this is just about the Mindless Act."

"But it's – " Frank says, and then he stops, because he notices that there's someone standing in the shadows at the corner of the diner. The person moves so they're just in the lamplight and Frank sees that it's Alicia. She grins when she sees Frank's seen her, and it makes Frank shiver. Then she disappears back into the shadows.

Frank's still so distracted by Alicia that he easily agrees when Lindsey and Jamia extract a promise from him not to tell Gerard about what happened.

"I just need a little more time," Lindsey says.

"Let me know if I can help," Frank says.

"Thank you, Frank," Lindsey says.

"Thanks for coming out tonight," Jamia says to Frank. "I wasn't sure you'd remember the code."

"Been a while since you've been on a blind date," Frank says, looking from Jamia to the Governor. "I should get back. I don't know how long Gerard thinks moving furniture will take.”

"I'm going back to the mansion. Are you coming?" Lindsey asks Jamia, who nods, and follows her.

Frank's about to turn and walk home when Alicia's at his side. He startles and almost trips over the remnants of potted plant that Jamia had used as a weapon.

"I won't tell if you won't," Alicia says.

"Uh," is all Frank can manage.

"I'll make sure Mikey doesn't say anything either," she says, "About your moving furniture." And before Frank can manage a coherent response, she goes back into the diner, and Frank’s left to wonder whether he’s just made a mutually beneficial pact with Alicia or if it’s actually blackmail.  
As Frank approaches the driveway of the Way Mansion, he sees Dewees, who is sitting on the stone wall at the edge of the driveway.

"What's up, man?" Frank asks.

"The sky," Dewees says, and Frank laughs.

"I meant, why are you sitting on the west wall? You're supposed to come back tomorrow."

"It's not tomorrow?"

"Just fucking come inside," Frank says, and Dewees follows.

"How was Jamia?" Dewees asks.

Frank flinches, but if Dewees notices, he doesn't say anything.

"She's fine," Frank says, and then because he isn't sure how to change the subject, he just shouts for Schechter as soon as they're inside. "Hey, Schechter? Mr. Grand Sorcerer?"

"Do not address me that way," Schechter says grumpily, appearing from his office.

"What?" he says, finally looking up from the several jagged pieces of stones that he's arranging on his desk.

"I've found us a temporary valet," Frank says, but when he looks behind him, Dewees isn't anywhere to be seen.

"You just stumbled across him?" Schechter asks.

"It's my buddy Dewees, the zombie. Dewees?" Frank says. He wonders if there's some rule he forgot about inviting him in and he's not able to cross the threshold.

Frank pulls back the sun curtain, opens the door and peers out. Dewees isn't there.

"Bring him in," Schechter says impatiently. "I'll do the interview and everything now."

Except that at that moment, Greta steps out of Schechter's office with a bowl of water balanced in her hands and several rocks rise up in the air from Schechter's desk and zoom after her like darts.

"You said that wouldn't happen!" Greta shouts as she runs past Frank, quickly handing him the bowl of water.

"I know what I said," Schechter shouts back. "Get the zombie started or whatever," he says to Frank. "You know what he needs. I need to go - " Schechter gestures towards Greta and the stones.

"Yeah," Frank says, and waits until Schechter has run off before he shouts into the courtyard, "Dewees, get in here!"

"In where?" Dewees says as he comes in to stand beside Frank.

"In the house," Frank says.

"Specificity is the key to a well-behaved zombie," Dewees says, like he's reciting something he was long ago urged to memorize.

"You'd better behave. Here," he says, hanging Dewees the bowl. "Go bring this to Cortez and I'll go get the training manual."

"Yes, sir," Dewees says, and Frank already doesn’t like the sound of Dewees calling him sir.

 

Frank spends the better part of an hour going over the Mansion layout, the valet duties, and where Dewees can find any of the various things he might need. He probably doesn't do as thorough of a job as he could, because it feels strange to him to start every sentence with, "When I was the valet, I did…" His head's spinning from the breakfast he just had with the Governor, from the mysterious attacker, and from his promise not to tell Gerard even though that's what everything inside of him is screaming to do.

Frank's mid-sentence explaining why there are three places they keep towels in the house when he's suddenly unable to speak. It takes him a moment to realize it's because he's coughing.

"You ok?" Dewees asks, reaching around to pat Frank on the back. Frank tries to answer, but he just coughs more.

"Haven't heard you cough in ages," Dewees says, when Frank finally wheezes to a halt. "Thought vampires didn't need to breathe."

"Not," Frank says, clearing his throat. "Not in the same way."

"Did you choke on something?" Dewees asks. Frank shakes his head. He's not sure what happened at all, except that his chest aches. “Maybe you’re throat is raw because you’ve been talking at me for an hour straight.”

"Whatever man, listen, the towels are important."

"I'm listening," Dewees says.  
Gerard's fallen asleep in his reading chair when Frank goes to find him. He startles awake when Frank touches his shoulder, but then smiles sleepily at Frank.

"How was Jamia? Have you been back long?" Gerard asks.

"Dewees was still here, so I got him started," Frank says, choosing to ignore the first question. "Come on, we should go to bed."

They're upstairs when Gerard asks, "Is everything ok, Frank? You keep clearing your throat."

He hasn't realized he is still doing it. "I just – it was weird, I had a coughing fit earlier. With Dewees."

Gerard accidentally slams the dresser drawer shut. "Coughing."

"Yeah, it was out of the blue," Frank says. "Haven't coughed in years."

"Maybe you should talk to Brian tomorrow," Gerard says. "It might have to do with your injury." Gerard's not looking at him, instead folding and unfolding a pair of socks.

"Shouldn't I be completely healed, though?" Frank asks. "Isn't the Trading supposed to – "

"Frank," Gerard says sharply, and Frank falls silent. Gerard finally looks at him and they have an uncomfortably tense moment of staring at each other.

"I'll talk to Schechter," Frank says.

"Ok," Gerard says, "Oh, I found the fern."

"Oh," Frank says. He doesn't want to talk about the fern. He wants to talk about why Gerard just snapped at him, and why he can't even say the word 'Trading' without Gerard getting furious. "Where was it?"

"Where you said," Gerard says, his voice softer. "In the third volume of field guides."

"I told you," Frank says.

"I know you did," Gerard says, and then he starts to undress and get into bed. Frank, feeling completely wrong-footed, does the same.  
"Why doesn't he want me to talk about the Trading?" Frank asks, storming into Schechter's office the next night.

"I'm assuming you don't mean the zombie," Schechter says, closing the book he was reading. "Who by the way, I haven't even been able to have a conversation with because he keeps running away."

"Did you scare him?" Frank asks. Schechter glares at him. "Because maybe you scared him and he just needs to….warm up to you." Frank can't help but say it with a smirk.

"Tell me why you're trying to talk to Gerard about the Trading," Schechter says.

"I'm not trying," Frank says. "It just keeps coming up."

Schechter is moving pieces of glass around what looks like a piece of plywood. He moves another piece and a moment later, Greta storms in.

"Stop it," she says.

"Stop what?" Schechter says, though it's clear he knows exactly what she's talking about.

"Stop moving the rooms of my house around like they're pieces on a chessboard."

"What?" Frank says. She looks pointedly down at Schechter's glass and plywood.

"Have you figured out the order yet?" Schechter says.

She sighs grandly and storms back out.

"You're cruel," Frank says.

"She's the one who wanted to be my apprentice," Schechter says, and moves another piece of glass. "So tell me," he says, looking up at Frank, "Why are you talking to me about this and not Gerard?"

"Because we don't talk about it, we just fight," Frank says.

Schechter shakes his head, and Frank isn't sure what he means, but he doesn't ask. "I just wanted to know if you knew something I didn't."

"I know lots of things that you don't," Schechter says.

Greta storms back in then. "Colors and prime numbers," she says.

Schechter looks considering at the glass piece in his hand, then places it down. "Close," he says.

She storms off in a huff.

"I don't know what you want me to say, Frank," Schechter says. "If he's upset, you're more likely to know than I am."

Frank shrugs. "I just think that it has to be about something more than the Trading -"

"Brian, do you know where - " Gerard says, bursting in. He looks at Frank, then at Schechter. "What did you just say?" he says.

"Nothing," Frank says.

"Why are you asking Brian about the Trading?"

Frank shoots Schechter a look as if to says, "See?" but Schechter is pointedly looking away.

"I'm not," Frank says. "You're the one who told me to come see him."

"About your cough," Gerard says.

"Your cough," Schechter says, in a way that completely gives away the fact that Frank has failed to mention the cough.

"I was going to – " Frank starts to say, but at that moment the door to Brian's office flies open again.

"Color," Greta bursts in, "And the Fibonacci sequence."

Then she takes in Gerard's flushed face, Frank's stillness, and Schechter's frown. She takes a step back.

"The Fibonacci sequence doesn't have a seven," Schechter says after a long moment.

"I'm going," Frank says, and pushes past Gerard and Greta. After a moment, he hears the door close behind him, and someone following. He hopes it's Greta, but when he turns, it's Gerard, who looks chagrinned at being caught.

"Checking to see what I'm doing next?" Frank says.

"I was just concerned - " Gerard starts but Frank cuts him off.

"I am tired of your concern," Frank bites back.

Gerard, to his credit, doesn't say anything. He lets Frank walk off down the hall.

Frank sleeps in his coffin the next day. They spend the next night pretending the conversation didn't happen.  


>  **Excerpt from the chapter on Service Staff and Non-Magical Staffing Requirements of the Way Household**
> 
> Since I have been employed with the Way Mansion, the household has suffered under what I was at first certain was a curse on the valet position, but later realized was simply a terrible combination of bad luck and bad decisions on the part of Gerard.
> 
> The Way Mansion could manage with a single valet with average skills were it not for the Detective Agency, or moreso, Gerard's inability to separate the agency from his household responsibilities7. As it were, the household has employed at least twelve valets in the past eight years, and I say at least because I know there are at least two occasions upon which Gerard employed a valet for less than a day and failed to tell me about the manner of the individual's failure to be appropriate the role.
> 
> Over the years, I developed a series of questions to be asked of anyone up for the position in order to first determine their qualifications, and, as time went on and Gerard's business grew more perilous, magical tests that would rule out anyone wishing Gerard harm.
> 
> The matter boils down to the fact that, after eight years and an increasingly tenuous relationship with Pencey, the provider of temporary service positions, we had an ideal balance of a capable valet and an individual supremely attuned Gerard's detective activities8.
> 
>   
> 7 Mikey appears to have no desire for valet service, but would also, I have little doubt, let the house fall into complete disrepair were he in charge.  
> 8So, of course Gerard went and fell in love with him.  
>   
> 

  
Frank's just finishing filing the update on the stolen set of cursed wine goblets Gerard took on a few weeks ago, and as much as Gerard would protest that they have a valet for filing, Frank's not interested in re-explaining the system to Dewees when he can't manage to find him half the time anyway. He thinks he must keep hiding from Schechter and he makes a point to bring it up the next time he finds him.

He hears Gerard around the corner and hurries to close the filing cabinet before Gerard sees him and they have to have another stupid argument.

Then Frank's hit with a weird wave of dizziness where the wall feels like the floor and the ceiling feels like the wall and then he kind of falls shoulder-first into the filing cabinet, which makes the trick drawer pop out and shoot paper and file folders all around and all the flapping paper isn't helping Frank's sense of up and down at all.

He tries to talk, to shout for help, because he's not getting better and his sight's getting blurry, but before he can get anything out, he's falling and he's at least reassured that he's found the floor.

"Frank?" Gerard is suddenly there, and Frank can feel him but not see him. He wonders if his eyes are swollen shut or if he just can't manage to open them.

"Requirements for full table settings with more than two Clan Code sub-level A's in attendance," Frank mutters and that's not what he meant to say at all.

"Brian!" Gerard shouts, which means Frank's scared him. He can hear Gerard's heart speed up and Frank tries to move his hand to pat Gerard's arm but all that happens is the room starts to spin really, really slowly.

"Why the hell are you shouting?" Schechter says, and as far as Frank can tell, Schechter didn't use the door. "What happened," he says, stern and calm.

"I don't know. He was on the ground when I came in here."

"Frank, can you answer me?" Schechter asks.

"Three pronged forks," Frank says, "Spoon to the left."

Schechter presses hard on Frank's chest and Frank starts to cough.

"Maybe it's something he ate," Schechter says. "Go get Cortez and see if he can tell us what bag Frank ate from."

"Brian, I can't leave him."

"Fine," Schechter shouts, and disappears, and reappears a moment later. "The blood looks fine," Schechter says. "If there's something wrong with it, I don't know what it is."

"But he's not getting better."

"We need to clean his system," Schechter says. "I can - "

"No, my blood helped him before."

"Nnnnnhhh," Frank says, as much as a sound of protest as he can manage. He knows this isn't right.

"Just a little, right?" Gerard says.

"Probably two ounces," Schechter says. “Though you'll have to judge, I'm not measuring blood from your wrist, ok?"

Suddenly Frank's mouth is full of blood and he's swallowing, his lips against Gerard's skin in a way he's absolutely not supposed to be familiar with. Things go fuzzy and dark, and he's just swallowing and swallowing, then he opens his eyes to a yellow glow that is Schechter bandaging Gerard's wrist with magic.

"What the hell," Frank says, though the words are thick and slow in his mouth.

"I'd like to ask you the same thing, come on, let's get you to the lab," Schechter says.

"Since when do you have a - " Before he can finish, he is unmistakably in a lab, on a cold steel table, and Greta is hurrying over to rest her fingers on Frank's wrist as though she's taking his pulse.

"You ok, Frankie?" Gerard says, standing right next to Frank on the table.

"Don't do that," Frank says, reaching for Gerard's wrist to try to see the wound. "Don't give me your blood."

"Frankie, you had blood poisoning - "

"No," Schechter says, swirling something in a test tube and holding it up to the light. "It's possible that you may have had an allergy attack, but it's too early for me to tell."

"I had an allergy attack?"

"Oh my god, Frank, what are you allergic to?" Gerard practically shrieks. "Allergies are completely dangerous, trust me, I know! Why didn't you say something, you need to be more careful - "

"I'm not," Frank says. "I'm not allergic to anything. I'm fine."

"Clearly," Schechter says, gesturing at Frank still prone on the lab table, "That is not true."

"Here's the analysis," Greta says, appearing at Schechter's side, peering at Frank upside down.

"How can you have an analysis, I've only been here for two minutes," Frank says. Greta does a perfect impression of Schechter's scorn.

"It doesn't mean we have answers," Schechter says, like it's taxing him to be this patient. "It just means we have a list of every Daylighter food, drug, and unique composition that's left traces in your blood."

"And so what do you have to do, just study it?" Gerard asks anxiously. Gerard and Schechter have a sort of battle of intense looks.

"We have to call Dr. Asher," Schechter says.

"Hey!" Frank says at the same time Gerard says, "Brian."

"Victoria," Schechter says, "is the best expert on vampire diseases - "

"I don't have a disease!" Frank protests.

"Fine, she's the best expert on vampire allergies," Schechter says, "And you'll do whatever she says."

"Fine," Frank snaps back, "I'll just go and clean up the file room and you can call me when she's here."

"No," Gerard and Schechter say at the same time and Frank is overruled.

"I'll get James to do it," Gerard says. Frank sighs. "And to make tea."

"Tell him - " Frank says, sitting up.

"I know, I know. What temperature to boil the water, what brand to use, what cup, and when to bring it to me." Gerard says fondly. "He's not my first zombie, Frank."

Frank lies back down on the table and listens to the bustling of Greta around the lab, and wonders when Schechter got a lab, when Gerard learned how to be a master to a zombie, and when Dewees so effectively replaced him.  
Frank hasn't really meant to fall asleep, but he wakes with a start when he hears Schechter and Victoria talking down the hall.

"You should have brought him to see me after his injury," Victoria says.

"Could this be related?"

"Well I haven't had many patients survive a poison arrow, and as I haven't examined him, I can't be sure."

"You know why I couldn't bring him," Schechter says.

"I heard the rumors," Victoria says. "You know I'm bound by doctor-patient confidentiality."

"Not when it comes to the suspicion of sinister rituals," Schechter says.

"And there's no reason for me to suspect one," Victoria says.

"Thank you," Schechter says, and then they open the door.

"Hi Frank," she says kindly. "I hear you're suffering from a case of blood-based allergies?" Frank shrugs, and she says, "All right, let's do an exam."

It's a lot like the other exams he's had the Clan office, with Victoria pressing strange pieces of equipment to various parts of his chest and arms, shining lights into his eyes, his ears, his nose, his throat. But she presses a few things that look like kitchen equipment to his feet, before finally focusing her exam on the diamond-shaped scar on his chest.

"Interesting that it scarred," Victoria says, pressing her fingers gently to the spot. Frank flinches. It hadn't hurt before, but it does now, in the weird, dull way. "Not all vampires scar once they've been turned," she adds. "It's not unheard of, it all depends on their manner of turning and their magical constitution. Brian, can I see your lab results?" Brian gives a wordless wave and Victoria stands and starts reading through the stack of papers. "Brian," she says, impatiently.

"Ask Greta," he says shortly.

"Greta?" Victoria says tentatively, and Greta comes in from the workroom.

"Oh, it's not translated, sorry," Greta says, and starts murmuring at the papers.

"What's not translated?" Frank asks.

"I can't read magic," Victoria says.

"Here you go," Greta says, handing them back to Victoria.

"You've gotten good," Victoria says. Greta beams at her and shoots a look at Schechter, who ignores her. "So," Victoria says to Frank after a few minutes of quiet. "It does appear that you have an increased sensitivity, you might even call it an allergy, to various compounds generally found in Daylighter blood. Have you ever had werewolf blood?"

Frank makes a face. "They gave it to me when I was first turned. Thought it would help give me strength since I'd been so sick as a Daylighter. Made me feel like I was on a swing set."

"Ok, so no werewolf blood then," Victoria says. "Your other best option is a cocktail, then. One part Daylighter, two parts Midnighter. I'm thinking a mix that's a third vampire should combat the Daylighter allergens. I'll give you a prescription and you can pick it up at the Clan office."

"I'll pick it up for him," Schechter says. Frank rolls his eyes at Victoria. "I saw that," Schechter says.

Frank's been sick more than his share, and he knows all the various stages of wellness and not-so-wellness, knows when he was past the point of when he should have gone to see a doctor, or when he could tough it out. The thing is, he's never been sick as a vampire. Illness is something he left behind. His poor health was the reason he got turned. So he doesn't know how to be sick as a vampire. It is like the first time he ever remembered being sick as a Daylighter: scared, vulnerable, unable to breathe like the blankets of his bed were choking him, feverish and unsure how to tell how close he was to never, ever, ever getting better.

He tries to reason himself out of it, as Schechter checks him over, as Victoria talks about blood cocktails, and tries to tell himself it's going to be fine, but there's still a part of him, something that's leftover from being a Daylighter, maybe it's even become scraped raw and new when he was turned, the part that thinks this is just the beginning of the end, the curse of his bad health tracking him down, come to kill him off finally. There's a part of him that thought, the very second he started to cough, that he was finally dying.

So of course trying not to think of it just makes him think of it, but he's scared, and he's never been very good at being brave. He turned himself into a vampire to escape dying after all, and yet. Death's still knocking at his door. But he'd thought there was a good reason then - he was young. He needed more time.

He thinks the same thing now. He's just found Gerard. He doesn't want to waste away. Not again. There are whole months he barely remembers, filled with bed rest and shortness of breath and pain.

Now it is going to be blood cocktails and the ice Victoria's placing on his chest, and Gerard giving him concerned looks if he so much as breathes too heavily.

"You call me if there's any change, and then let's make an appointment for a week from now, I'll even come here so we can keep this discrete. Not that there's any reason, of course," Victoria says lightly. "It's nice to get out of the office."

Dewees is there to show her out, and Frank is being resolutely ignored by Schechter, as though he's had quite enough of Frank for the day, so Frank lets himself out of the lab, and goes to see Gerard.

"I didn't want to intrude," Gerard says. It's a poor explanation for why he is effectively hiding from anything that might implicate him in Frank's illness or injury. Frank wants to shout the word over and over. Trading, Trading, Trading, just to see what Gerard will do. "What did Victoria say?"

"Victoria's not going to say anything," Frank says impatiently.

"What did she say about you?" Gerard says. "About what's wrong."

"She said that it's not the first case of Daylighter sensitivity she's seen develop after turning. She's prescribing me a blood cocktail."

"And Schechter's taking care of it?" Gerard asks.

"Yeah," Frank says, and wonders why no one will let him do anything for himself.

"Good," Gerard says. "And you're feeling ok?" Frank nods. "You want to go out and see the dragon's bush? It's on the east lawn because it's supposed to smoke on the 3rd and 4th of the month and I didn't want it clogging up the greenhouse."

It's a peace offering, and Frank's ready to accept it. If this is just the beginning of him getting sicker and sicker, then he doesn't want to spend what time he has left fighting with Gerard.

"Yeah, ok," Frank agrees. As they're walking out to the yard, Gerard lets his hand linger on Frank's back.  
Frank doesn’t get better over the next few days, but he can pretend he isn’t getting worse, and he can pretend to ignore the way Gerard looks at him when he coughs. Gerard hovers over Frank the first time he drinks the cocktail Victoria's described. He feels fine, and finally convinces Gerard to leave him alone and go back to his office so Frank can track down Dewees.

As Frank's wandering around looking for him, he hears raised voices, and he's not used to hearing Brian and Gerard argue like that. He walks closer to Schechter's office, as close as he dares, and listens. If he focuses, he will hear it more clearly, like zoning in on a sound through everything else rather than just casting his hearing wide open, assuming Schechter doesn't have magic on the door. But Frank listens, and he hears Schechter's voice clearly.

"Brian, it's the simplest solution."

"There's a difference between effective and simple. There is nothing simple about that."

"You know what's wrong."

"It's not a good idea," Schechter says. "But I'll consider it. Now get out, I need to work."

Frank rushes away from the door, and ducks into the grand dining room.

"Frank?" Dewees calls from under the table.

"Dewees, what the fuck, I've been looking all over the house for you. Where do you keep disappearing to?"

"I don't know," Dewees says. "I get lost."

"Well come on, get up. You have chores to do."

"I do," Dewees says agreeable, and crawls out between two chairs. "Did you hear shouting earlier?"

"No," Frank says and then the door chimes. Frank looks at Dewees, who’s still on his hands and knees between the chairs. “You gonna get that?”

“Oh, right,” Dewees says, and heads for the door. Frank follows, and Gerard’s just coming out of his office when Dewees announces the arrival of Pete Wentz.

"Pete," Gerard says cautiously. "I don't believe we have an appointment?"

"Oh, no," Pete says airily, like he never needs appointments. "Mikey and I are going out."

"Out where?" Gerard says.

"Gerard, leave him alone," Mikey says as he comes out from where he's rummaging in the coat closet for a pair of shoes.

"Where are you going?" Gerard asks, turning his question on his brother.

"None of your business," Mikey says back.

"There's a counter-protest at the rezoning line," Pete says diplomatically.

"I'm getting my counter-protesting shoes," Mikey says.

"You're not going," Gerard says. Pete actually takes a step back.

"What's wrong with going to a counter-protest?" Mikey says, "It's not like it's my first one. I have shoes specifically for it."

"It's not safe," Gerard says.

"I'll be with him," Pete says. Mikey beams at him. Gerard scowls. "I mean it, besides my general strength and reassuring protectiveness, I travel with security." Gerard's frown seems to deepen.

"I'm going to go get the sign posts in the shed," Frank says, because even though it can wait, he feels tense and awkward with the brothers on the edge of a fight. Pete looks at him like he wants to go with Frank but can't find an out. Gerard doesn't seem to hear Frank, but Frank slips out anyway, without waiting for acknowledgement.

There's a faint glow across the lawn and Frank follows it to the fire pit, thinking maybe Schechter's burning something. The closer he gets though the more he realizes - or rather feels - that it's not fire. He can feel fire the same way he feels sunlight, though less intensely. This glow is something else, something more magic. He gets close and the glow goes out, then he sees that Alicia is standing just outside the fire pit.

"Sorry," Frank says. "Didn't mean to disturb - " he's not sure what he disturbed, actually, but he's sorry. He really had hoped he wasn't going to see Alicia again for a while.

"Nice fire pit," Alicia says. "It get much use?"

Frank shrugs. "I think Schechter burns stuff in it mostly and Gerard will burn off some of the brush and cuttings from the greenhouse. Mikey told me they used to have bonfires years back, but there hasn't been one since I've been here."

Alicia nods. "Gerard doesn't let you near the fires?"

"No," Frank says, "Even though it's not like I'm just going to spontaneously combust if I tend a fire outside. But he has a thing about greenhouse stuff."

"I know," Alicia says. "There are certain things about which he is very....." she gestures and a little bit of the glow returns, "reserved. Have you seen Mikey?" she asks, and Frank startles a little at the change in topic but tries to keep up.

"Yeah, he's inside with Pete," Frank says, then regrets it instantly. It must show on his face because Alicia laughs, and it's a melody that reverberates around the trees. "He's fighting with Gerard," Frank adds, hoping to avoid talking about what he said and Alicia's reaction at all.

"Pete's fighting with Gerard, or Mikey's fighting with Gerard?"

"Mikey," Frank says.

"Well that's good," Alicia says, "I didn't think Pete was feeling particularly suicidal lately."

Frank laughs, and for a moment, he feels almost comfortable around Alicia. It's not that he's scared, or that she's Fairy, she's just - it's like with Schechter before he met him, but worse. It was all her power.

"I can go get him, if you want," Frank says.

Alicia shakes her head. "I'll just sit out here and contemplate your empty fire pit," Alicia says. "If you don't mind."

"No," Frank says. "I don't mind." He's not sure it would matter if he minded, and it's not like he's going to tell her to leave. She smiles at him, though, and Frank heads to the door then turns around, almost forgetting he was going out for the sign posts. He sees the glow start again and watches it fill the sky until he can see all the woods around, the houses and the Lazarra mansion, like it's a harvest moon at midnight.  


>  **Application for Sorcerership, page 47, part 4, Personal Declaration**
> 
> I have been in residence in this household without formally serving as the family sorcerer for eleven years. I have also come to believe that at the time Gerard hired me, he saw something in me that I did not yet recognize myself. Most level 5 quests do not begin eleven years into service, and while I am fine with the unusual nature of my pursuit at this time, I am not looking forward to the eleven years or halfhearted and unorganized notations as required in creating my own book of family magical history.
> 
> I was not planning at the time to ever pursue sorcerership, so I did not document magical events in the house with any detail or consistency9. I would have continued along in that manner, if it hadn't been for the faked death of Pete Wentz10.
> 
> And with that fact, I begin the recording of the present events of the Way Household with an illegal, sinister ritual: The Trading.
> 
> 9 If I had, I would never have done anything else. I am not sure that my future as a level 5 sorcerer won't be reduced entirely to paperwork.  
> 10 Please see attached case file, faked case file, evidence log and faked evidence log.

  
Frank walks by the sitting room on the way to the kitchen and he sees Mr. Vaughn Stump is on the settee, his hands pressed over his eyes. Frank's not sure for a moment that it is Mr. Vaughn Stump, because he would have expected him to be at the counter-protest along with Pete. What’s even more odd is that he’s missing the most distinguishing feature - his hat. His head looks smaller, and Mr. Vaughn Stump obviously feels that it's barer without it, because the hand that's not covering his eyes keeps creeping up to touch his forehead.

"Sir," Frank says, ducking in, "Did Dewees take your hat? He's still new, but he's a zombie, so all you have to do is firmly tell him you'd like it back."

"No," Mr. Vaughn Stump says, "Thank you, Frank, but I didn't come here with a hat."

"Oh," Frank says, and then, “I'm sorry to disturb you, is there anything I can - "

"Frank," Mr. Vaughn Stump says, "I thought you just told me Dewees was the valet."

"Yes," Frank says.

"So why are you offering to get my something to drink?" Patrick says.

"Oh," Frank says. He hadn't even realized he was doing it. "Apparently it's hard to unlearn being a valet, sir?" It's a ridiculous thing to say, since technically Frank hadn’t been a valet for very long at all.

"And that," Patrick says, touching his forehead, realizing he's doing it and stopping again, "Call me Patrick."

"Of course," Frank says, and he says the name a couple of times in his head as though it could override all this time calling him Mr. Vaughn Stump in just a few repetitions. "Are you here to see Gerard?" Frank asks, because even though Patrick's insisted on being called by his first name, it doesn't mean that Frank's allowed to ask about the missing hat.

"Greta, actually," Patrick says. "But she's probably with Brian since she's not next door, so I thought it would be all right to wait for her here."

"I'm sure Schechter will give her a moment if - "

"No, she's expecting me. I made an appointment and everything. She's an apprentice now, so I need to schedule consultations in keeping with the Clan Code for any magical business."

Greta shows up at that moment before Frank can ask what sort of consultation he's here for. Patrick stands and they hug, and Greta says, before she's even let him go, "Patrick, where's your hat?" Patrick's face falls. "Tell me who it was, I'll go after them," Greta demands.

Schechter appears behind her. "You are not cleared for violent retribution," he says. Greta sighs. "Patrick," Schechter greets him and Patrick nods.

"Here," Schechter says, and he's suddenly holding a hat, not unlike the fedoras Patrick usually wears. He hands it to Greta, who hands it to Patrick. Patrick understands immediately, but he sort of hovers with the hat lifted to his head, hesitating. Then Frank realizes that Patrick's not hesitating. The hat won't go onto his head.

"You've been cursed," Greta says.

"Very good," Schechter says to Greta. "But what kind?" Schechter asks her, and holds his hand out for the hat, which he makes disappear.

"I have the Curse of the Ninth," Patrick says while Greta's tilting her head at him, trying to divine the curse.

"No you don't," Schechter says immediately. "Who cursed you?"

"I don't know," Patrick says.

"Hmmm," Schechter says, and then he corrects Greta's hand position as she scans Patrick.

"By his head?" Greta asks and Schechter nods, nudges her hand a little to the right.

"What's the Curse of the Ninth?" Frank asks.

"Something he doesn't have," Schechter says emphatically. He's watching both Patrick and Greta.

"But he's been cursed with something," Greta says. "I can feel it, just not what." She sounds frustrated.

"It's not the Ninth," Schechter says to Patrick. "I'd know if it was. Come on, come to the lab, I'll let Greta do the intake."

"You will?" she says, looking up at him, surprised. Schechter ignores her and says to Frank, "Get your coat, Gerard's going to want to go to the apothecary in a minute."

Frank nods, and doesn't ask how he knows. He goes to the coat closet and when he opens the door, an arm thrusts his coat to him. "Your coat, sir," Dewees says from behind the line of hanging coats.

"What the fuck, man?" Frank says. "What are you doing in the coat closet?"

"You sent me here."

"That was this morning," Frank says. "And I didn't tell you to get in the closet, I told you to put a coat in the closet. Who let Patrick in?"

"I did," Dewees says, his face still hidden behind the coats. "And then I came back here."

"Were you hiding from Schechter again?" Frank asks.

Dewees doesn't answer.

"Come on, get out of the closet, the scary sorcerer is gone. And the next time I tell you to get out of the way, I don't mean for the whole day."

"You need to give me a specific time," Dewees says. "Gerard always asks me to come back at a specific time."

"Well then ask Gerard," Frank says.

"Ask me what?" Gerard says, appearing.

"Here's your coat, sir," Dewees says, handing Gerard his coat.

"Thank you, James," Gerard says.

"Out of the closet," Frank says. Dewees obeys. "He got scared of Schechter," Frank says in explanation.

"I can talk to him about it," Gerard says. "Brian could ease up a little on the whole intimidation thing."

"No," Dewees practically shouts. "That's not necessary, sir. There's no need to bother the sorcerer with my small issues."

"If you say so," Gerard says skeptically. "But you let me know if you change your mind. There's no need to hide in closets if you don't want."

"I just do what I'm told," Dewees says, eyeing Frank meaningfully.

"Are you coming with me?" Gerard asks Frank, looking at his coat.

"Schechter told me you were going to the apothecary."

"Oh, no, I was going to the Office of Zombie Affairs," Gerard says, "to follow up on the vampire zombie."

"Oh," Frank says, "So I shouldn't come."

Gerard's expression is pained. "I just think – "

"No, it's fine," Frank says, and tries to mean it. "I'll go see what Greta and Schechter have found out about Patrick."

"Something's wrong with Patrick?"

"He's cursed, apparently."

"What curse?" Gerard asks, putting on his coat. Frank helps him fold down the collar.

"Patrick said he thought it was the Curse of the Ninth."

"Oh my god, poor Patrick," Gerard says. "I'll be back in a few hours. See you soon, Frank," he says, and then he's gone.  
Schechter's explaining a second round of blood analysis to Frank while Greta conducts some sort of complicated scan of Patrick's hand with a thin piece of thread.

"Frank," Schechter says, and Frank realizes he's zoned out, and Schechter's holding a piece of paper out at him.

"Sorry," Frank says, and looks at the paper. It's a list of spices. "Wait, this can't be me, this is - "

"All of the spices Gerard is allergic to."

"That's weird," Frank says.

"Victoria thinks it's a possibility you imprinted on his food choices," Greta says. She's walked over to the desk with her eyes closed, but she opens them as she hands Schechter a glass vial. "Eyes closed," Schechter says.

Greta curses under her breath and closes her eyes. Frank looks from Greta to Schechter but they appear to be having battle of wills, staring at each other even though Greta's eyes are closed. After a moment, it seems that Greta loses and she holds her hand out for the vial, eyes still closed.

"Patrick's done the chart," Greta says, walking back over to him without bumping into anything the way Frank would expect.

"Send him over, then," Schechter says. "Eyes closed!" he says.

Greta sighs.

"So you've never had any allergies," Schechter says, gesturing at the list Frank is holding.

"Unless you can figure out something the doctors never could about why I kept getting double-lung pneumonia," Frank says.

"That's exactly what I intend to do," Schechter says. He snatches back the list and starts circling things. "What else did you have?"

"You mean, Daylighter illnesses? Uh, everything?" Frank says. "Bronchitis half a dozen times, asthma all the time, a lung infection, twice. Every cold and flu you can think of. And I nearly had a collapsed lung, I don't really remember it though."

Schechter shakes his head. "And you swear to me, Frank, you swear you followed the Clan Code procedure for turning?"

"Yes," Frank says, "I was at a clinic and everything."

"Which clinic?" Schechter asks, and Frank shrugs. It's not something he really paid much attention to at the time. Schechter rolls his eyes at him and says, "Fine, I'll check your paperwork myself."

Greta comes back a moment later, her eyes still closed and a little smirk on her face that shows she's proud of it, too, Patrick behind her. Greta continues the rest of the way into the room and starts pulling down small jars and putting them back, her eyes still closed.

Patrick nods at Frank, and holds out the chart for Schechter, who takes it. "Stay there for a second and let me read it," Schechter says, now he closes his eyes and holds his palm over it. "Strange," he says.

"What?" Patrick says. "I mean, any part specifically?"

"It's strange that you of all people got cursed," Schechter says.

"Anyone can get cursed," Patrick says. "If you think because I work with Pete - "

"It's not about Wentz," Schechter says, and Frank sees something like relief on Patrick's face. "Your energy's all wrong for curses, it should have slid right off you."

Patrick looks at Frank, and Frank shrugs. If there's something Schechter sees in Patrick's energy, it's not visible to Frank, although that's why he's not the sorcerer.

"We'll do a few more things in a minute," Schechter says. "Let me figure out why Frank kept knocking on deaths' door." Schechter picks up Frank's file of papers and begins flipping through them. A few pages in, Patrick comes over so he's right behind Schechter's chair, and brings his fingers to Schechter's shoulders and starts rubbing them. Schechter sighs and leans into him, without looking up from his paperwork, and Frank watches, mesmerized, as Patrick's fingers work, digging into the tight muscle, making Schechter's chest rock forward slightly with each motion. No one ever touches Schechter, and so Frank's not really sure what's happening, or why it's happening in front of him. He wonders if, like Greta, he ought to close his eyes.

Patrick's thumbs stroke up the joint of Schechter's neck, back down, then higher up, tracing to the nape of his neck, just under his hair. Schechter sighs.

"Uh," Frank says, and both Schechter and Patrick startle, Patrick jumping a foot back.

"What just happened?" Schechter says, turning to Frank and then to Patrick.

Greta's eyes fly open and Schechter doesn't say anything. "Frank," Schechter says when it's clear no one else is going to say anything.

"Patrick was - he was just massaging your neck."

"He was what?" Schechter says.

"I - what?" Patrick says.

Schechter crowds into Patrick's space. Frank and Greta exchange a worried look. "Did you mean to?" Schechter says.

"No," Patrick says.

"Greta, was that you?"

"What, did I decide I wanted to see Patrick massage your neck? No," she says shortly.

"Interesting," Schechter says, and sits back down abruptly. He touches his fingers to his neck, where Patrick's thumb had traced his skin. He holds his hand over Patrick's chart again.

"Show this to Gerard when he gets back," Schechter says abruptly to Frank, and Patrick's hands fall away from Schechter's shoulders as Schechter hands Frank a piece of paper with the list of spices in the blood that Frank was apparently allergic to.

"Ok," Frank says. "See you," he says, to Patrick, and Greta waves, her eyes still closed. Schechter's already ignoring Frank before he's out the door.

Frank's not going to show Gerard the allergy list, because he knows it's not allergies. Maybe it's the first symptom, sure, but that's how it always is, this false hope that if he just eats right, or stays away from strenuous activity or gets enough sleep, that he won't get sick, again and again. It never worked before and it's not going to work now.

"I've got another letter for you," Dewees says, catching Frank pacing back and forth in his bedroom, between the coffin and the bed, since he knows he should lie down and rest like everyone keeps telling him to but he can't decide where he should lie down. "Why do you get so many messages? You never got much mail at your old apartment."

"I don't fucking know," Frank says, snatching the letter off the tray.

"How are – "

"Don't ask me how I'm feeling," Frank interrupts before Dewees can finish. Dewees shuts up immediately, because it's an order. "Sorry," Frank adds. Dewees is still eyeing him balefully, even if he can't say anything else about it.

"I'll be downstairs," Dewees says. "If you need to send a reply."

Frank opens the letter, which he thinks will be from Jamia. Instead, it's from the Governor.

There's a scrap of paper that reads, ‘If you're still interested in helping, you can help me figure out who sent this letter. –L.’

There's a small card-sized envelope addressed to the Governor, and inside, there's a piece of paper that says, "Tell us the detective's secret and you won't have to find out what we do to our enemies."

Frank is still interested in helping. But not just for the Governor, and not just because Jamia asked him to. If he's dying, if this is finally it, than he's going find out who wants to hurt Gerard and he's going to stop them before he's too sick to be any good.

The first thing he does is go to see Schechter, who is standing on the opposite side of his desk and tracing the outline of a strangely shaped wooden block onto another, larger block.

"Why are you back again?" Schechter says.

"Can you tell me where paper comes from?"

"Trees," Schechter says. "Greta," he calls out.

"It's not working," Greta says, through the closed door to the next room

"And whose fault is that?" Schechter asks.

"Will I have to start from the beginning if I say it's yours?" she says.

"I mean, a specific piece of paper," Frank says. "Can you, like, trace it back to where it came from?"

"Give me the paper," Schechter says, putting down the wooden block and the pencil.

"I just meant theoretically," Frank says, but Schechter holds out his hand.

"No you didn't. Give me the paper."

Frank doesn't want to give Schechter the actual note, because then any chance he has of keeping this from Gerard will go right out the window. He fumbles for the note in his pocket and finally manages to give Schechter just the envelope. Schechter gives him a suspicious look as he tucks the rest of the note away.

"I can tell you where it came from and where it went," Schechter says. He stares at the envelope a moment and then says, "It was sent within a block of the first house where the werewolf territories and Fairy overlap. And it was received at the Governor's mansion," Schechter says, "Though the address says that part clearly enough," and he pins Frank with a look. Frank is certain that Schechter's going to ask him why he has mail that was received at the Governor's mansion, but he just says, "Does that help?"

"Yes," Frank says. He thinks Schechter's going to say something else, but when Greta shouts from the other side of the door.

"It's tracing itself now," she says nervously.

"Whose fault is that?" Schechter says.

"Can I blame Patrick?" she says, and Frank decides it's as good a time as any to get out of there.  
Frank knows exactly who to go see about anyone suspicious living in the werewolf territories. Frank worked with Mike Pedicone at Pencey when Mike was a new wolf, before he got recruited by Pete to run the Werewolf Residential Assistance Program. Frank's heading up the path to Mike’s office when Gerard turns the corner onto the street. They both see each other and stop. This isn't anywhere near where Gerard said he was going, and he looks as surprised to see Frank as Frank is to see him. They're both so still that Frank thinks for a minute that Gerard will actually just turn and walk off in the other direction, but then he comes over.

"Uh, hello," Gerard says. "I didn't realize you were - "

"Running errands," Frank says quickly. "I thought you'd be gone a while, so - "

"Of course," Gerard says, and then it seems to register that he's quite obviously not anywhere near the Zombie Affairs office. "Just....following a lead," Gerard says absently. They both turn at the sound of footsteps approaching behind them.

"Hey,” Mike says, “ I'll be ready in a few minutes, let me just get the files unlocked, ok?" and continues his way into the building.

"You're meeting with Mike Pedicone?" Gerard says.

"Yeah," Frank says defiantly.

"Oh," Gerard says. "Is it about the Clan Code compliance of the house? Or something Brian asked - "

"We’re old friends," Frank says, which isn’t exactly true, but he’s not the only one who’s lying. "I shouldn't keep Mike waiting."

"Right, I should go, too," Gerard says. "So, I'll see you later, Frank." And then he hurries off as Frank heads for the door.

Frank tries very hard not to think about what lead Gerard's following, and then Mike's there, and Frank convinces himself to focus only on his lead.

"So, what can I help you with, Mr. Iero?" Mike asks. He's wearing a suit so blue Frank thinks there has to be some magic involved.

"Don't call me Mr.," Frank says. Mike grins at him.

"Sorry," he says. "You called representing the Detective Agency."

"Which means you're supposed to pretend we don't know each other, I know, I remember the rules even if I don't follow them at the right times," Frank says.

Mike laughs. "You said you needed housing lists?"

"Yeah," Frank says, bluffing his way through it from everything he's heard Gerard say, "And there's a clue that led us to this area. I don't need a full address list, just anyone who might be in this zone who's on your radar?"

Mike's eyebrows shoot up for a moment, and Frank knows that there is absolutely someone on his radar. Frank tells Mike what Schechter said, about how he's looking for anything a block from first house where the werewolf territories and Fairy overlap.

Mike gets a bunch of files after entering a complicated code, and as he hands them to Frank he says, "You know, I don't know the details of the case, but I can tell you who it is without having to look through those files. You know who lives there, don't you?" Mike says, "It's the werewolf called Bert."

"The werewolf called Bert,” Frank says. "Fuck."

"Does that help?" Mike asks.

"Yeah, it really does, thanks," Frank says, and he shakes Mike's hand, tucking the files under his arm.

The werewolf called Bert, Alpha of the Shallow Believer faction would totally threaten the Governor.

He hires a messenger to deliver the files to Lindsey and a note he writes about what Pedicone said about the werewolf called Bert, and then he takes the long way home, hoping that he'll get there after Gerard has returned.

Gerard is coming out of the greenhouse when Frank comes in, and they exchange polite hellos and it seems like neither of them is going to bring up their meeting outside Mike's office. He watches Gerard go upstairs with several cuttings in his hands, probably to paint. Frank listens to see if he can hear Mikey, and then follows Gerard. Gerard is painting, Frank was right, pots of oil colors on the small table beside him. Gerard's arranging his palette. Frank stands at the door, not wanting to disturb him. He waits until Gerard wipes his hands on a cloth and looks up before coming all the rest of the way in.

"Hi Frank," Gerard says. "How's Patrick?"

"Strange," Frank says, thinking back to the inappropriate touching.

"Curses can be very unsettling," Gerard says. "The vampire zombie, for instance, appeared to be under a geis that combined vampire and zombie characteristics. I'm sorry, Frank," he says, "I shouldn't talk about the case. How are you feeling?”

He wishes Gerard hadn’t asked. He hates that question so much, it’s hard to hide it. "I’m fine," Frank says.

"I’m sorry,” Gerard says.

"It’s not your fault.”

"It is. I never thought that one of the consequences - " Gerard says and stops. Here it is again, the thing they can't seem to stop coming back to.

"You weren't thinking," Frank says. It's much more bitter than he means it to be. The air between them goes tense.

"No, I was thinking very clearly," Gerard says. "Just only about the one single thing that mattered."

They stare at each other, and Frank's almost frightened by the intensity Gerard's barely masking.

Gerard exhales slowly and then says, "But you're feeling ok now?" Frank nods. "You don't want to sleep or anything?"

What Frank really wants is watch him paint, perch on the corner of an armchair and watch Gerard swipe colors all over a canvas, twist his brush in his fingers the way he doesn't realize he does before making a decision.

"Would you - mind if I just sat here?"

Gerard's expression softens as he accepts Frank's redirection. "Of course not, Frank," he says, and then he turns his attention back to the canvas.  


>  **From a list of Curses Attempted on Gerard, Mikey, the mansion, the grounds, or any individual sent into the property cursed with the intention of spreading this curse 11**
> 
> Bodo's Curse12  
> Fornwell's Friend 13  
> The Curse of Mercury 14  
> Palanquin's Geis 15  
> Unknown Textile Particalization Curse16
> 
> 11 Please see separate list for cursed plants acquired, gifted, or bred.  
> 12 Cast on Gerard during an investigation. Removed before it effected his fingernails.  
> 13 Detected and removed before the double Gerards could multiply further.  
> 14 Cast on Mikey at a protest. Detected when Mikey repeatedly asked me how my day was seven times in an hour, removed before it could take further effect on his ability to process conversation.  
> 15This was placed on the carriage, twice, before I was able to locate the curse caster. Gerard, quite remarkably, is immune to any curse that's transferable by touch or object. I have not told him this lest it result in even more reckless behavior.  
> 16 Cast on the evidence room by an undetermined object contained within. Currently unremovable, which explains all the dust.   
> 

  
Frank's meeting Spencer at the Undead Oyster for the first meeting of the Valets with Non-Traditional Master's club. Spencer seems surprised when he walks in and sees Frank.

"I thought you weren't a valet anymore," Spencer says.

"But you came anyway," Frank says.

Spencer smiles and sits down. "Well, I am still a valet with a non-traditional master, so I assumed I might just come and see what other valets I ran into," Spencer shrugs. "We're an expanding community, there might be a growing number of non-traditional masters out there. How are you, Frank?"

"I'm fine," He says, because he hasn't gotten the hang of saying, _I'm going to sicken and die soon_. "How are you and your master?" Frank responds.

"You sure you aren't a valet?" Spencer asks. "You can call him Brendon, you know. He certainly keeps asking me to."

"I bet he does," Frank teases

Spencer's cheeks color slightly.

"That's a lovely look on you," Gabe says, coming over from a few tables away and putting his hands on Spencer's shoulders. Spencer tenses. "Don't forget to update your Clan Code registration, Mr. Smith," Gabe says. "It's that time of year again."

"Like you'd know," Spencer says tightly.

"I don't know what you're talking about," Gabe says. "I am Clan certified."

"Yeah, as a creeper," Frank says. Gabe laughs delightedly and then wanders away as if he hadn't been talking to them at all.

"Don't worry about Gabe," Frank says since Spencer visibly relaxes as soon as Gabe's gone. "He likes to mess with all the former Daylighters."

"I was never a Daylighter," Spencer says, distractedly.

Frank's momentarily dumbfounded. "I'm sorry," Frank says.

"No, I'm sorry, I should explain. I thought I was a Daylighter, if that counts," Spencer says.

"Really?" Frank asks. "Were you a sleeper Midnighter or something? I've heard there are Banshees who go into stasis for whole decades."

"No, I'm a changeling," Spencer says. Frank looks at him closely, searching for evidence. "You'd never know, right? I didn't know until I was a teenager. So remember when I said I was friends with Ryan growing up? I went with him to one of the Clan Clinics just after he'd been turned for his weekly check-up, and I set off the alarms."

"Alarms?" Frank says.

"Every Clan office used to have them before it was ruled an invasion of privacy. But they had sorcerers set up magical species detectors, mostly so that people who knew they were Midnighters but didn't really know enough else about themselves could get categorized. It was like a diagnosis, oh, you're a vampire, oh, you're a selkie, oh, you're half-water creature, here, have a spritzing bottle. It made it easier for the Clan officials and the Midnighters matching up their self-identification. Anyway, they had Ryan go in and out the door a dozen or so times before they realized it was me."

"So, which court do you belong to?" Frank asks, though for a moment he thinks he's going to cough instead. "You can't possibly be Unseelie."

"I could, I guess, they've offered," Spencer says. "Baby swapping is their kind of thing, and then Alicia offered, on behalf of the Seelie, when Ryan tried to have her over for tea one time. I'm kind of an outsider, really, so I've just been getting used to finding my own way without choosing a court."

Gabe walks by, deliberately close, and winks at Spencer. Spencer shudders.

"You want to go? Or I could punch him, I guess," Frank says.

"No," Spencer says. "Please don't."

Frank stands to get up, or he thinks he does, but he thinks he must have tripped on his chair, because he's on the floor. When he tries to sit up, Spencer's got a hand on Frank's chest, gently holding him down.

"Stay there for a second, Frank," Spencer says in his polite valet way of requesting something while not actually asking at all.

"Just tripped on - " Frank says, but the room's spinning in a way that's getting familiar.

"No, you didn't," Spencer says. "Something you're taking, Frank?" Spencer asks. Drugs, Frank thinks. Spencer's asking about drugs.

"No," Frank says, but then he starts to cough, and Spencer rolls him onto his side.

"We need to take him to a clinic," Spencer shouts to Travie, who's come out of the kitchen to check on the commotion. Frank wants to say no, but he's too busy coughing, his throat raw with each choke.

He feels Travie lift him, tries to let himself go limp, even as coughs are still shaking his shoulders and chest.

The next thing Frank knows, he's in a room in a Clan Clinic, and Dr. Asher is telling Spencer to take off his shoes.

"Not coughing from my feet," Frank says. His sight's still blurry, and he's not coughing anymore, but he can feel it in his chest, lurking there, or maybe it's just the pain from a coughing fit enough to knock him out.

"Oh, so he's back with us," Victoria says. "And he knows anatomy."

Spencer's taking off his shoes anyway. Travie is actually pacing.

"Travie, stand the fuck still," Frank says, because Victoria's lifting up one of his feet and examining it and it's Frank's trying not to think about it too much because it'll get too weird.

"Hey, you fucking blacked out on me as I was carrying you here, I can pace all I want," Travie says. Victoria has abandoned his feet after looking at both his heels and how she's taking a blue glass and pressing it to his chest and then pressing her ear to it. It reminds Frank of kids eavesdropping at a door with a water glass. Frank's about to say as much when Victoria says, "Shh," and everyone in the room goes quiet.

"Ok, Frank, you stay here, and stay lying down, I'll be right back," Victoria says.

"What did you - is it -" _My lungs_ he doesn't ask. He knows what it feels like to get worse.

"I'll be right back," Victoria says and slips out the door. Frank immediately tries to sit up and Spencer, who hasn't seemed to ever leave valet mode, is pushing Frank back down, his mouth set in a line. Travie is still pacing.

"What happened?" Frank asks.

"You tell me," Travie says. "I'm showing the new kid a mnemonic for remembering where dishes are kept and I look and you're fucking hacking up a lung and last I knew, vampires didn't cough, ok?"

Frank can't really say much to that, because, last he knew, the same was true.

Frank looks at Spencer, who shrugs. "Seriously, one minute you were standing there and the next you were on the floor."

There's a commotion outside the door, and when it swings open, Frank's expecting Victoria again, but instead it's Dewees, who says, "Announcing Mr. Way," and before he's even finished, Gerard is barreling into the room. He stops short when he sees Frank on the exam table. Frank tries to sit and Spencer still firmly pushes him down.

"Frank," Gerard says, sounding utterly lost. Even Dewees looks concerned.

"I'm fine," Frank says.

"You're in a Clan Clinic, you're not fine," Gerard says. "Hello Travie, Spencer," Gerard says. "Forgive me my lack of manners.

"Not at all, sir," Spencer says.

"Have a seat, Mr. Way," Travie says, pulling a chair over to Frank's exam table. Frank tries to sit up again and Spencer just gives him a look.

"Can you tell me what happened?" Gerard says. He seems to be scanning Frank for injuries. "Was it coughing like before?"

Frank says, "I just came to a few minutes ago."

"You were unconscious?" Gerard asks, his voice going high.

"Hello Mr. Way," Victoria says, returning. Frank sighs. "Ok, I need to ask everyone to give me some time with Frank. I'm sorry but that includes you, Mr. Way," she says.

"Of course," Gerard says absently. Frank reaches out for Gerard's hand and gives it a squeeze. Gerard's eyes snap back to Frank's face.

"I'm fine," Frank says.

Gerard shakes his head like he's agreeing, but Frank can tell the conversation would be going differently if there were less people around.

"Let me know when you're done, please, I'll be outside," Gerard says to Victoria, in this authoritative voice, and Victoria just nods. Frank watches as everyone leaves and Dewees shuts the door.

"I know you're scared, Frank," Victoria says, and Frank wants to argue, but he's alone with a doctor, and he is scared. "You said you'd call me if anything changed. I take it your sorcerer didn’t pinpoint a specific cause?"

"This isn't normal," Frank says.

"We don't know everything about normal with Midnighters," Victoria says. "Not even vampires and you're the ones we know the most about."

"But coughing -"

"Is odd, yes," Victoria says, "And I know what you're thinking." Frank closes his eyes. "I looked at your files, Frank, I know when you were turned and how long you were sick before that." He wishes Victoria wasn't so keen. "Of course it's a possibility that your lungs are still weakened or still being affected by some Daylighter ailment, if an unlikely one. But to be honest," Victoria says, "I'm considering some injury from the arrow you took in the chest a few months ago."

Frank nods, because, he hadn't thought of that at all, and that's much more reassuring than thinking he's got pneumonia again. "I want you to ice your chest for 15 minutes, twice a day. Always put a towel under it, don't put it directly on your skin, and don't do it for more than 15 minutes, it'll lower your body temperature too quickly and I don't want you in here for hypothermia, too."

"Ok," Frank says.

"I need to do some research, so I'm actually going to ask Mr. Way for a chance to look at his library." Frank can tell from her tone that the thing she wants to research is the Trading. He wonders if Gerard will be more open with her than he is with Frank. "Don't worry, Frank, we'll figure this out. Here, I'll go get some ice and send Gerard in, ok?"

Victoria comes back in with some cloth wrapped ice, and she pulls Frank's shirt away, and arranges the towel over his chest. Frank lets his eyes fall closed, lets the coolness soothe his chest and his worry and he closes his eyes. Gerard comes in a few moments later, whispering, "Hi Frankie," and Frank shifts to try to see him but Gerard stops him with a hand on his arm, and then Frank feels Gerard lean close, and press a kiss to his forehead.

"You ok, Frankie?" Gerard whispers.

"I hate coughing," Frank says, surprising himself. Gerard strokes his hands through Frank's hair, then down across his face. Gerard's tenderness is more reassuring than Frank could have expected. "You're not mad?"

"Why would I be mad?" Gerard asks. Frank doesn't know how to say he's had no idea what makes Gerard so angry lately.

"Because this happened. In public."

"Oh, Frank," Gerard says. "I just want you to be well," Gerard whispers, his fingers pausing on Frank's cheek.

Gerard sits quietly with Frank, stroking his fingers over Frank's jaw until Victoria comes back in. She opens the door quietly and Frank realizes he was practically asleep. Gerard stands, and they're whispering again, but Frank can hear them clearly enough. Victoria is asking if Frank's stopped coughing with the ice, and then she's handing Gerard a sheaf of papers.

"You can come with us now," Gerard says. "Brian will let you in if I ask him to."

"I'd rather take a few hours to create my research proposal. He should have it by tomorrow evening."

"Very well," Gerard says. "I'm sure he'll appreciate your formality."

"Oh I'm not sure about that," Victoria laughs, "But his Order will." Victoria lifts the ice from Frank's chest and has him sit up. She then presses the eavesdropping glass to his back. "I want you to follow the instructions I've left with Mr. Way. If you have another coughing fit that renders you unconscious, I want you to get yourself to the closest clinic, or call me."

Frank nods, and dazedly lets himself be shuffled toward the carriage without even reading the papers for his care.

"Honestly, Frank," Dewees says, though it sounds more concerned than scolding as Dewees helps him into the carriage after Gerard.

He feels better when he's leaned against Gerard, Gerard's arm draped over his shoulder and Frank resting his head on Gerard's chest.

"What was Victoria talking about, with a research proposal?" Frank asks as the sound of the ground passing behind them starts to relax him, the further he gets away from the clinic and the way it brings up too many familiar bad memories of so much time lost to doctor's offices, and things he thought he left behind him.

"Brian's a classified sorcerer now," Gerard says, "Not that he wasn't before, but he's following the rules of his Order now because he's finally accepting who he is. Which means that when a professional comes to the house to use our resources, they need his permission, and he needs to know the scope of their research."

"Just because he's a level five whatever?" Frank asks.

"And he's tied to our family."

"You can do that before he's a full sorcerer?"

"Yes and no," Gerard says. "He was only tied to the house as much as he was a sorcerer. We hadn't had a family sorcerer for a while, you know, it doesn't suit everyone’s needs, and when Mom wanted a smaller place closer to her friends in the gardens, well - it was up to me to find one if I wanted one."

"And you wanted one?"

"I needed one," Gerard says, and Frank feels like he's going to say something else, but then he says, "With the business, you know? Come on, Frank, close your eyes for the rest of the ride." Frank does, without hesitation, and if there is another question about Schechter lurking in the back of his mind, it is lost when he falls asleep.  


>  **From the Three Parts of Magical Origin Retrieval: Attachment to a Household**
> 
> I was working in an apothecary when I received a visit from Gerard, who was looking to employ a sorcerer capable of guiding a family member through an illness. I knew no such sorcerer, since at the time I was not in contact with the Ancient Order of Magic17 but I offered my assistance, and Gerard accepted.
> 
> Guiding a person through an illness is a straightforward magical process if you know the illness they are suffering from. In the case of Gerard's brother, he had caught what at first appeared to be a fever, though when I asked Gerard if Michael James Way, Son of Donna, Grandson of Elena, Second in Line as Keeper of the Venerable Way Mansion18 had seen a doctor, Gerard said no and refused to have one called. Mikey was delirious and his body heat was rocketing and the only thing that had helped was when Gerard had placed him in what was the coolest room in the house, a stone room underground.
> 
> It didn't take much deducing to determine that Mikey was not suffering from a traditional sickness, and despite Gerard's unwillingness to tell me what was actually wrong with Mikey, I was able to find the path back to his healthy spirit and guide him there.
> 
> To this day, I do not know what Mikey was suffering from. I do not believe Mikey has any memory of the incident.
> 
> 17 Since at that time they had told me in no uncertain terms that I was not to call on them until I was ready to pursue magical apprenticeship and I had told them in no uncertain terms that it was never going to happen.  
> 18 Hereafter referred to as Mikey.  
> 

  
The next night, Frank thinks he’s feeling well enough to go out and investigate the werewolf called Bert, or at the very least go out and see Jamia and Lindsey to check in, but Dewees appears with ice and Frank loses the chance to sneak out. He has no choice but to get into his coffin. "I'm fine, man, get out," Frank says, swatting Dewees away as Dewees arranges the ice on his chest.

"I'm staying till your 15 minutes is up," Dewees says. "Victoria told me to," when Frank raises his eyebrows. "Don't make me go over the Zombie Hierarchy of Orders," Dewees says.

"Well at least stop fussing," Frank says and Dewees steps away from the coffin.

"You could use some fussing, is all I'm saying, especially if you're not going to let your boyfriend do it."

"It's not like that," Frank says.

"Oh really?" Dewees says. "Are we doing this again?"

"Doing what?" Frank says, knowing he shouldn't ask the question since Dewees is baiting him, shifting because one side of his chest is colder than the other. At least it makes his chest feel better and less like it's swollen somewhere inside.

"Frankie, Frankie, Frankie," Dewees sighs. "When you got pneumonia the second time, and then when you got the upper respiratory infection that spread to your lungs -"

"Enough of my medical history," Frank says, because thinking of it makes his lungs hurt, makes his head just spin and climb with worry.

"All right," Dewees says thoughtfully. "When did you and Jamia break up the first time?"

"September that year, I guess?"

"It was right after your lung collapsed," Dewees says. Frank feels a sympathetic twinge in his chest.

"Yeah, so?" Frank says. "What didn't go wrong that year?" Dewees doesn't answer and Frank says, "Are my fifteen minutes up yet?"

"Eight more to go," Dewees says without hesitation. "You push people away, Frankie."

"I'm still friends with you."

Dewees barks out a laugh. "Despite your best efforts sometimes. Don't get me wrong, it's been better since you've been a vampire, but there's a reason it was easy for you to transition. You barely had anyone left in the Daylighter world."

"That's ridiculous," Frank says.

Dewees doesn't say anything. "And the only reason I said Gerard wasn't - it's because we're - we still haven't really talked about - "

"Are you sleeping with him?"

Frank startles and almost starts to cough. "Yeah," Frank says.

"And you care about each other?"

"We are not having this conversation." Frank says. It's either enough of an order or Dewees is annoyed enough with him that he stops and is quiet. "How many more minutes?"

"Three," Dewees says, "Though I have half a mind to put you into the icebox."

"Fuck you," Frank says though there's not a lot behind it. "Hey man," he says, before he can stop himself. "Do you think I'm dying?"

Dewees is suddenly leaning over the coffin. "No, Frankie," he says.

"Ok," Frank says, relieved.

"But you're still pushing people away, which means you think you are, and I think that's more important. Time's up," Dewees says, and takes away the ice and then lowers Frank's coffin lid.  
"There's a note for you," Dewees says, walking up to Frank with a silver tray and a piece of folded paper on it.

"Who's it from?"

"Read the note, I don't know."

Frank reads he note. It's from Jamia, and it says she's right outside. "Jamia gave you this note, didn't she?" Frank asks.

"I was instructed not to reveal the delivery person."

"But it's Jamia, because the note says she's right outside."

"It might be," Dewees says, Frank gives him a frustrated sigh.

"Is Gerard here?”

”He left an hour ago to see Mr. Urie,” Dewees says, and Frank’s first hurt that Gerard’s gone out again on the case without him, but then relieved that he won’t have to sneak past him, which just makes him feel dizzy inside his own head.

"Well, when comes back, tell him I've gone to help Jamia move furniture again."

"Of course," Dewees says. Frank thinks he ought to have at least tried to come up with a better lie. But his mind's already racing, about why Jamia is there, why she'd walk right up to Dewees and give him a note. Something has to have happened for her to be out in the middle of the night.

He finds her down the path, waiting by the gnome boxes. "What is it?" Frank asks. "What's going on?"

"I need some moral support. I just got a note from Alicia that Lindsey ran into some trouble in Fairy, and I'm not going over to the Governor's Mansion and seeing her with bloody knuckles and a black eye without an emotional crutch."

"I'm your crutch?" Frank asks cautiously. He wants to ask Jamia if she trusts Alicia's information, but there doesn't seem to be a way to do it that doesn't insult Jamia.

"You are tonight. What did you tell Gerard?"

"He's out," Frank says.

"Good," Jamia says, and they make their way to the carriage.

"You don't really think she'll have a black eye," Frank says.

"Well, maybe I'll give her one," Jamia says, and Frank keeps quiet for the rest of the thankfully short carriage ride.

Jamia strides up to the Governor's mansion, badgers the guards, and gets them inside Lindsey's entryway in under ten seconds. Frank's not sure he could have done it faster if he was using vampire strength.

"I'm fine," Lindsey says from behind her desk. She has three steaming cups in front of her. They don't look like they're steaming with tea. Frank's reassured to note that she doesn't appear injured in any way.

"You keep quiet," Jamia says to Lindsey, who sighs and sits back in her chair. "What was she doing?" Jamia asks Alicia.

"Meeting an informant," Alicia says. She's flipping through a book with pages the size of Frank's chest.

"I take it the informant wasn't you?" Jamia asks.

"No," Alicia says, and closes the book. "Hi Frank," she says.

Frank startles. "Hi Alicia," he says.

"You ought to tell them," Alicia says to Lindsey.

"Yes, she's right," Jamia says, "Whatever it is she thinks you should tell us, I agree."

"No," Lindsey says, sternly to Alicia, then, more softly to Jamia, "I can't. It's complicated."

"It's complicated less because of what you don't know then because of what you do," Alicia says. “You remember that time you got trapped?”

"You were trapped in Fairy?” Frank says. He thought people who got trapped in Fairy never got back out.

"Since when," Jamia breaks in, "do you have an informant in Fairy?"

Lindsey looks appropriately scolded. "Since tonight," she says. "Or so I thought."

"Why - " Jamia says but Lindsey interrupts her.

"Because Frank found out the threat came from a neighborhood near Fairy."

"She didn't ask me," Alicia says, "For the record. She didn't ask me first, even though I would have been able to tell her."

"I didn't want to bother you," Lindsey says, exasperated.

"You are always my bother," Alicia says. Jamia throws up her hands.

"So you went in, got into trouble and Alicia got you out," Jamia says.

"No," Lindsey says, with a smirk, "I got myself out of the trouble, I just made enough noise that Alicia came over to see what was going on."

"She's got a nice artistry with her punches," Alicia says.

Jamia is glaring at Lindsey, and Alicia is taking one of the steaming cups away from Lindsey's desk and peering into it.

"So, did you find out anything?" Frank says. "About who's following you, and why?"

"No," Lindsey says, too quickly.

"You can at least tell him why he's here," Alicia says.

"I'm Jamia's emotional crutch," Frank says.

Alicia laughs, and Lindsey looks embarrassed. Jamia just turns her glare on Frank. "So, I guess that was a clever ruse," Frank says.

"Do you know if Gerard has any secrets?" Lindsey asks, Frank feels the air buzz around him, so loud in his head he almost wants to look around to see if there's a suddenly someone behind him. Frank feels like Gerard is nothing but secrets.

"If I knew if he did," Frank says, choosing his words carefully, "It wouldn't be something I would talk about with anyone." He feels furious with and protective of Gerard in equal measures and he's and ready for a fight from anyone who pushes him.

"Here," Alicia says, giving Frank the steaming cup she'd taken from Lindsey.

"I'm not drinking this," Frank says.

"You don't drink it," Alicia says. "Just look into it for me."

He does. He can barely see the bottom of the cup through the steam. "Ok," Alicia says, and takes it back, then looks into it. "He doesn't know," Alicia says.

"I don't know what?" Frank asks.

"I don't know either," Lindsey says.

"What are you talking about?" Jamia exclaims.

"I already knew five of the six reasons my 'informant' told me someone was following me," Lindsey says. "The sixth was whatever it was they wanted to know about Gerard."

"But you don't know anything," Frank says, not sure if he's frustrated or relieved.

"Apparently not," Lindsey says, looking to Alicia.

"But you do," Frank says, to Alicia. Alicia's face is impassive. She has to be lying. Why would Alicia know any of Gerard's secrets?

"Can we talk about how there are five other reasons someone is spying on you?" Jamia says.

"But I don't understand," Frank says, "If someone wanted to know something about Gerard, wouldn't they follow me, or Mikey, or something?"

"That's what's worrying," Lindsey says. "I'm the wrong person to go after if you want to know something about Gerard, but go after me they have."

"Hello, five other reasons?" Jamia says.

"The Mindless Act," Lindsey says, counting off on her fingers, "The ninth Clan Code collaboration with Wentz, the district re-zoning, the Quinn case against the werewolf called Bert, and the Mindless Act."

"Why is the Mindless Act on the list twice?" Frank asks.

"Because it's very important," Lindsey says.

"So, wait," Frank says. "Someone's watching you to find out what you know about this secret that Gerard has?"

"Yes," Lindsey says.

"But you don't know anything."

"I know several things about Gerard," Lindsey says, "None of which seem likely to be secrets."

"So why," Frank says, "Don't we just ask him."

"I'd rather he not know," Lindsey says. She looks up at Alicia.

"So that's why you brought me here," Frank says to Jamia. "You wanted to see if I knew. You could have just asked."

"If you knew," Alicia says, "You wouldn't be able to tell it."

"This is crazy," Frank says. "This is totally crazy. I found out that information about the werewolf called Bert and I thought it would help. But if he's in danger - I'm just going to go home and ask Gerard what secret he has that the Governor might know because there are people who are trying to find out to use it against you, or him, or something."

"No, you're not," Lindsey says, "Because then we'll lose the upper hand. There's a reason they're not going after Gerard directly, and I want to know what it is."

Frank sits down in the nearest chair and scrubs his hand over his face. When he opens his eyes, Alicia is holding out another steaming cup.

"Drink this."

"I'm not drinking your scrying tool or whatever," he says.

"It's tea," she says, and when she hands it to Frank, he sees that it is.

He drains the tea, stands up from the chair and sets Alicia's cup down on the table, and then coughs a little, and taps his hand on his chest. "So, I'm just going to - " but then he realizes Jamia is staring at him. "Uh," he says.

"Frank," she says, short of breath, and then Alicia and Lindsey are looking between Jamia and Frank. "You coughed," she says, pained.

"Oh," Frank says, "yeah, it's like, it's this thing that's been happening since - "

"You've been coughing," Jamia shouts and Frank startles. He looks to Lindsey for help, who just shrugs, because of course she doesn't understand. They've wandered into raw territory; an old fight that they're not supposed to be having anymore.

"I'm not sick," Frank says hurriedly.

"Then why are you coughing?" Jamia asks.

"Well, Victoria doesn't know - "

"Victoria?" Jamia says. "You've had to see a doctor?"

"I'm not sure I understand," Lindsey says. "Why it's so bad that he has a cough?" Alicia is reading the cup Frank's finished like she's looking for invisible tea leaves.

"Vampires," Jamia says, "don't cough." She's gone kind of grey.

"It's why I became a vampire," Frank says to Lindsey, "I almost died of a Daylighter illness."

"A couple of illnesses, a couple of times," Jamia says. "Seriously, Frankie, don't do this to me again."

The guilt hits him hard. He lied a lot back then, trying to keep her from worrying, and it's clear to him now that he'd done a really terrible job.

"I'm not dying," he says. "It's a side effect," he says. "Of....what happened."

"What happened?" Jamia says, but Frank just looks away. "You know what, don't pull this bullshit with me. Watching you almost die while you did a pathetic job of trying to hide it from me? Not one of the highlights of our relationship."

There's a long pause, and Frank watches as Lindsey and Alicia exchange a series of complicated looks.

"Really? No half-hearted apologies? No telling me how much you still love me even if it's not enough to get yourself to a doctor? It's like trip down memory lane."

"You know it wasn't like that," Frank says, feeling his defensiveness overwhelm him.

"What I know," Jamia says, "is what a fucking idiot you are when you're sick."

The stare at each other. The thing is, she's not wrong. Even now, he thinks about how he went out without blood, how he didn't tell Gerard or Schechter where he was going, how he was hours overdue for Victoria's ice regimen.

"It's not the same. I'm not sick in the same way."

"It looks the same to me," Jamia says. "Right down to the denial, and the way you keep trying to stop yourself from coughing."

At the word, he starts to choke through holding it back, coughing and coughing until Alicia pours him more tea and practically forces a few sips into his mouth until he can drink the rest without spluttering.

"Does Gerard know?" Jamia asks, once Frank's drinking his tea without coughing each sip. He knows why she's asking, and it slices through him. He wants to start apologizing, but he knows that's not what she needs right now.

"Yeah," he says. Jamia sighs, and looks away, nodding. "He was there when it happened, the first time."

"Ok," she says. "Because I was going to fucking tell him, if he didn't."

Frank wonders if she hates Dewees for not telling her when Frank was hiding how sick he was. He wonders if she hates him, a little, too.

"You're going to fucking tell me all about it," Jamia says. "I'm taking you back home."

"I'll come with you," Alicia says.

"I don't need an escort, I'm fine," Frank says, more because he doesn't want Alicia to come.

"Remember the time with boat?" Jamia says, and shit, he'd been thinking about it, too, but hoping she wouldn't bring it up. "With the railings?"

"I was fine," he says. "Like now. After some tea."

"It was a whole bottle of bourbon and I'm not entirely sure you didn't just numb your central nervous system."

"I want to hear more of these stories," Alicia says.

"I'm going to stay," Lindsey says, "But I expect a full report?" She's smiling cautiously at Jamia, who smiles back.

"Fuck you all," Frank says half-heartedly.

"So, I'm waiting," Jamia says, "Tell me how a vampire can have a cough."

Frank's telling them as much as he can while trying to keep the conversation away from the Trading, Jamia casting him suspicious looks and Alicia listening like it is a funnier story than it actually is. They're almost to the Way Mansion when Alicia stops, and then shushes Frank, turning herself around to face the opposite direction, her eyes half closed.

"Alicia," a voice scolds and then Gabe steps out from a shadowy doorway. "There's no need to put on a show, you've known I was here for the past two blocks."

"Sadly, Gabe, I can't ever forget where you are."

"And who is this fine specimen of Daylighter?" Gabe asks.

Jamia rolls her eyes. "Put the vampire charm away, I'm not interested," Jamia says.

Gabe grins at her, then at Alicia, and then as an afterthought, seems to notice Frank.

"Hi Gabe," Frank says, "Find your glasses yet?"

"No," Gabe says, feigning shock at the realization. "I have no idea where I've put them."

"How that answer works on the Clan officers, I have no idea," Frank laughs appreciatively.

"We'll just be on our way," Alicia says.

"Don't be home late," Gabe says. "There are monsters around."

"Can't believe he's still making that joke," Frank sighs, but Alicia's mouth is in a line and she doesn't say anything until they get to the mansion.

Gerard is thankfully still out, but it's not Dewees but Schechter who opens the door and glares at Frank when he sees Frank's escort.

"Alicia," Schechter says in greeting. "Jamia. Tell me, did you find him on the side of the road?"

"Just about," Alicia says. Frank has no idea why Alicia is covering for him.

"I'm fine," Frank says.

"Shut up," Schechter commands. "Dewees?" he says, but Dewees doesn't answer. "Fine, I'll get you some ice myself," he says, and storms off.

Frank tries to catch Alicia's eye, but she asks "Is Mikey home?" and she's heading upstairs without waiting for an answer.

"You're sure Gerard knows," Jamia asks. "Everything?"

He knows it shows on his face that it's not true. She looks away, crosses her arms. "Is it because of what's going on with the Governor that you're not talking to him about it? Are you trying to protect him?"

"Yes," Frank says, because that's exactly what he's doing, but it just makes Jamia's face fall.

"He needs to know, if you're getting worse," Jamia says. "It'll be easier for him."

Schechter returns with ice and all but levitates Frank upstairs into his coffin. Frank hears Dewees appear and offer Jamia tea, and then he coughs until Schechter arranges the ice.

"I'd ask you not to be stupid in the future," Schechter says. "But it won't do any good."  
Gerard returns sometime after Frank's drifted off, and once he lifts the lid of his coffin, he can hear Gerard trying to reassure someone downstairs. Frank gets up, because he doesn't want it to seem too obvious that he had a coughing fit that took enough out of him that he to take a nap in his coffin. He realizes Gerard is talking to Inspector Toro.

"I think he asked me out," Inspector Toro says. "On a date."

"That's wonderful," Gerard says.

"I said I think," Inspector Toro says. "I'm not certain. He said it's some sort of dinner event or something. I should wear my best suit. I don't have any good suits."

"Ray," Gerard says soothingly. "You said yes?"

"I did," Inspector Toro says, "But there's still time for me to take it back." Gerard laughs. "I should get back the station. I'll send you those files. We're even using Pencey now for evening messages."

He knows he ought to at least greet Inspector Toro, but after his run-in with Alicia, he's not feeling particularly social, and he takes full advantage of not having a valet’s obligation to be polite, and hides instead until Ray leaves.

"Who is Ray wearing his best suit for?" Frank says at Gerard's door. Frank can still feel the unfinished argument from before hanging between them, but Gerard laughs a little at Frank's question.

"Bob Bryar," Gerard says, and then he asks cautiously, "Are you feeling all right? Brian said you went out?"

"With Jamia," Frank says, hovering at the door. He's scrutinizing Gerard like he will see the secret, whatever is so important, if he just looks hard enough. "Moving furniture," Frank says.

"Again," Gerard says. "She must be doing quite an overhaul of her apartment." There's something in Gerard's voice that's wrong, and he knows Frank is lying.

"So I'm just going to go take a bath," Frank says, and it's the coward's way out. Gerard looks at him for a long moment and Frank thinks he's going to be called on the lie, and then Gerard says, "Ok," and looks away.

 

There's a knock at the door a few minutes after Frank’s filled the tub and climbed in, and Frank hopes that it will be Gerard, but braces himself in case it’s Dewees, bringing in more towels.

"Come in," Frank says, guarded.

"Frank?" Gerard says, swinging the door open just a crack, so his face fills the space, peering in.

"Hi," Frank says, and suddenly the splash of water, his lack of bubbles makes him feel self-conscious and warm.

"Hi," Gerard says, taking a few cautious steps in. "I'm sorry," he says, "If I was brusque before. I was worried when I heard you were out."

"It was not a big deal," Frank says. Gerard just takes off his jacket, starts to roll up his shirtsleeves. Frank watches, mesmerized by the simple action. He catches Gerard's eyes, and Gerard flushes, and then takes a seat at the edge of the tub, trailing his fingers into the water.

"You don't need to worry so much," Frank says, though his voice is unsteady, with Gerard leaning close, Gerard's fingers inches from Frank's skin in the water.

Gerard laughs, quiet and low. "I can't help it."

"You can tell me about the case,” Frank says, and Gerard's fingers stop in the water, the halt causing a splash.

"No, I think there's something else I'd rather do now," Gerard says, and lifts his fingers, still dripping, to trace down Frank's jaw, to tilt up his chin. He rubs his thumb over Frank's lip and Frank tastes the hot water. "Oh, Frank," Gerard says, dipping his hand back in the water, then trailing his wet fingers through Frank's hair. Frank lets his eyes fall closed, and Gerard does it again, the bathwater dripping down Frank's neck. He shivers and then Gerard's cupping the back of Frank's head, and Frank feels the tug of water at his chest as he lets Gerard pull him forward, and then kisses him. Frank tucks his knees up against the side, hangs on to the edge of the tub with one hand, to Gerard with the other. Gerard is kissing him so slowly, Frank thinks he might fall back into the water, or fall over the edge of the tub chasing Gerard's mouth. But Gerard is holding Frank just where he wants him, fingers firm and massaging warm, urging presses at the back of his neck.

Gerard traces his tongue over Frank's bottom lip, over the corners of his mouth, over the crown of his top lip. Frank whimpers and Gerard smiles and does it over again. Frank rocks against each press of Gerard's lips to his, the water splashing as his body shifts, trying to get closer, closer to Gerard. He arranges his legs underneath him so he can sit up, and he presses his wet hands to Gerard's chest, feeling the material getting soaked, the water dripping down his elbows. Gerard kisses him so slowly, languidly, sliding their tongues together, teasing the roof of Frank's mouth so that Frank's rocking up against Gerard, fingers digging tight in the wet material. Gerard slides his mouth hotly against Frank's cheek, licking over where the bathwater has trailed down his jaw. Frank manages to undo the first two buttons of Gerard's shirt before Gerard's mouth on his neck stops him from being able to focus on anything else. Gerard's teeth scrape over the skin, still wet from the bathwater, sucking hard and then mouthing so gently, then licking, then teeth again, and Frank can't do anything but tilt his neck to Gerard's, and moan, which echoes on the tile. Frank's hands fall away, and they splash back into the water, so that when Frank grabs for Gerard again, his hands are newly wet and warm.

Gerard gasps when Frank presses his wet hands back to Gerard's chest, getting two more buttons open and sliding his shirt back away from his shoulders, so the thin material of his undershirt colors with Frank's wet fingerprints.

"Frank," Gerard breathes against Frank's neck and then he pulls back to unbutton the rest of his shirt, slide it off his shoulders. Frank slides back into the heat of the bathwater, "If you had any idea the number of times I wanted to do this, every single time you ran the bath for me, I wanted you wet and slippery against me." Gerard discards his shirt, and then lifts the hem of his undershirt, taking it off and revealing the pale expanse of chest and stomach.

Frank trails his newly wet fingers across Gerard's chest, down his ribs. Gerard breathes in sharply, and Frank brushes the pads of his fingers, one by one, over Gerard's nipples, striping a wet line all the way across his chest. Gerard closes his eyes, bites his lip, leans toward Frank. Frank reverses his path, dipping his fingers in warm bath water, rubbing Gerard's nipples, water dripping down the curve of his stomach. And then Frank doesn't mean to do it, but his fingers are traveling over the scar on Gerard's chest, where he sliced himself with a knife and let Frank drink blood from his heart.

Gerard's eyes fly open as Frank traces the scar with his fingers, feeling Gerard's heart beating right beneath his hand, so close, so close, and then he's leaning forward, hair dripping wet across his face, shoulders chilly as they rise out of the water, and pressing his mouth to the scar, tracing his tongue along the jagged line of scar tissue. Gerard makes a broken noise, and when Frank presses his lips to it, Gerard has his hands under Frank's arms and he's hauling him out over the edge of the bath, Frank's feet kicking up a splash of water. Frank wants to laugh, but then Gerard's still holding him tight, draping Frank across his body, sprawling them both out across the tile. Gerard's kissing Frank devastatingly, one hand on the back of Frank's head, one hand on the small of his back, his leg tucked over the back of Frank's calves, holding him close, and Frank knows, distantly, he's going to get cold, and this should be ridiculous, Frank naked and wet on the bathroom floor, but their chests are sliding together, skin slippery wet with bath water.

"You can't - " Gerard's says roughly between kisses, and Frank is still half expecting Gerard to push him away. "You can't touch me there and expect me to have any sort of control left."

"Oh," Frank says, and so he presses his mouth to the scar again and Gerard groans, throwing his head back, fingers pressing sharply into Frank's back.

"You can't - " Gerard mumbles. "Can't - "

"It doesn't....hurt?" Frank asks. It doesn't look like pain, but Gerard's still insisting it's something Frank shouldn't be doing, even if it looks totally like something Frank should keep doing from the way Gerard's reacting.

"No," Gerard says, breathy and quiet. "God, no, Frank, it feels - " He doesn't try to find the words, just kisses Frank so he'll understand, sliding their tongues together, canting his hips so they're in the perfect rhythm of rocking, dragging his fingers across the damp skin of Frank's back.

"Can I keep doing it?" Frank asks. Gerard makes a choked sound and Frank can't tell if it's a yes or a no. It's important that Frank doesn't guess wrong, because this is the closest they've come to talking about it, and Frank's mouth on that spot is almost too literal a reenactment, except this is the only time Frank hasn't felt shut out by Gerard's reactions. "Gee?" Frank asks. Gerard rocks his hips up, eyes squeezed shut.

"Please," Gerard breathes out, eyes still closed. Frank brings his lips across the scar, dragging them wet and slippery with spit and bathwater and Gerard moans and shudders underneath Frank, legs falling open, hips canting helplessly up. "Frank," Gerard breathes out, shaky.

Frank traces his tongue along the scar and then presses his teeth gently against it - not his fangs, just his regular teeth. Gerard goes perfectly still.

"Yeah?" Frank asks. Gerard whines. Frank presses his teeth down harder. Gerard arches his chest and shoulders so much that Frank's almost thrown off.

"Frank, I need - I need," Gerard says, and then Gerard's reaching between them, unbuttoning his pants and shoving them down. "Oh," Gerard gasps when they're skin to skin, Frank pressing their bodies together, still slippery and wet.

"What do you need, Gee, tell me," Frank murmurs, kissing Gerard's jaw as Gerard moves restlessly underneath him.

"Just touch me, Frankie, please," Gerard pleads, fingers gripping at Frank's hips. Frank reaches between them, the angle awkward and he's not sure he'll keep his balance, but he wraps his hand around Gerard's cock, and he barely manages three strokes and Gerard's coming all over their stomachs, shouting Frank's name.

"Fucking Christ, Gerard," Frank says, and he slides himself against the wet mess, palms slippery on the tiles, Gerard breathing shuddering breaths underneath him. Then Gerard reaches up and kisses Frank, deep and rough and sloppy, hands in Frank's hair, and then Frank's coming, too.

They catch their breath laying against each other, and then Gerard whispers, "The water's still warm, let’s get in the bath."

Frank steps in after Gerard, feeling his body temperature immediately start to rise. They slosh water around as they settle, and Frank leans back against Gerard, who is tracing lazy circles in the water.

They stay that way until the water starts to cool. "We shouldn't," Gerard says abruptly, his voice tight. "You shouldn't do that again."

There's no good way for Frank to ask why. This is private, this is just the two of them, so Gerard's excuse that people will get suspicious doesn't apply here. Frank wonders if Gerard believes they shouldn't get enjoyment out of what's supposed to be a sinister ritual. But the way he'd looked, the sounds he'd made when Frank had touched that spot....

"Ok," Frank says. But then Gerard presses his hand over Frank's scar, and Frank's more confused than ever.  
Greta pulls Frank aside and says, without further lead-in, "I need to talk to you about your friend."

Schechter has Greta doing all sorts of weird stuff lately, like charting the migratory patterns of dust motes, so Frank just assumes it's some sort of interview for her apprenticeship exams.

"I'll freely admit I don't know much about necromancy," Greta says, and she says it with such forced formality that Frank thinks there's hardly anything free about her admittance at all.

"You mean that's what Schechter pointed out when you asked him whatever question you're going to ask me."

"So he sent me off to do research, yes," Greta says with a long-suffering sigh, "Like it would kill him to just explain something to me straight out, just once."

"I don't know much about necromancy either," Frank says.

"But you're friends with a zombie," she says.

"I was friends with him before he was a zombie, too," Frank says, "And it's not like it was my idea to raise him from the dead."

"How did he die?" Greta asks.

"I was in the hospital when it happened," Frank says. "I was in and out, that month, so it wasn't a big deal that I hadn't seen him. You don't really expect your friends to visit every time you're in the hospital when you spend as much time there as you do in your own place. But I guess he was gone so long because - well, he died. Some stupid shit, too, walked home drunk, tripped and hit his head, passed out. It was a cold night, and he just. Died."

"He died of exposure? So he didn't die in a Clan Clinic or anything?"

"No, and it was before they gave out those cards about what you want to happen to your body after your mortal death, so, he must have told someone what he wanted before or something? I don't think he had an estate, I don't know. He doesn't talk about it and it isn't really something you're supposed to ask, you know? He just showed up at my place and I told him to take off his fucking shoes because he was all covered in mud and he just - took off his shoes. He never fucking did what I said. And he said, 'Oh, so, I should mention, I'm a zombie now.’ Like nothing had changed."

"So he was always - "

"Like that, yeah, that's just who he is. Strange."

"And you never knew his master?"

"No," Frank says, "I figure he's just secretive, you know?"

"Often people who keep zombies are," Greta says, “There's something off about him, though.”

"That's just Dewees," Frank reassures her. "There's always been something off about him."

"No, I mean, about him as a zombie, his zombie magic," Greta says.

"Really, though, that's just Dewees," Frank says. "He's always been like that."

Frank's not sure exactly what she's seeing that's weird, but it's Dewees, so, Frank doesn't really need to know to reassure her.

"Ok," Greta says, though she doesn't sound convinced. "I guess I'll go read that book Schechter gave me. Or throw it at him."  
"Was Ms. Salpeter asking about me?" Dewees says, appearing from around the corner in a poorly hushed whisper.

"Yes," Frank says back, mimicking the same whisper. "She said you were weird."

"Apt description," Dewees says.

"Wait, why are you asking? Did you do something? Are you trying to ask her out?"

"Frankie, I don't have time for romantic entanglements," Dewees says. "Certainly not with a sorcerer's apprentice."

"She was asking about necromancy," Frank says.

"Ah, a hobby everyone should get into."

"She's right, you are even weirder than usual."

"Time for your ice,” Dewees says. “Since we’re talking about weird. Oh, and your doctor’s coming over.”  


>  **From the Catalog of Items in the Way House That Should Be Kept Locked Up 19**
> 
> Alicia's spirit board, loaned or given to Mikey, in which case it could presumably be referred to as Mikey's spirit board.
> 
> Fae/Fairy in classification. As far as I know, Alicia is a member of the Seelie court. The item bears no trace of curses.
> 
> This spirit board could be used to conjure, converse with, question, or temporarily bind a spirit from another realm. 20
> 
> I have strongly encouraged Mikey not to keep this item under his bed, as it has the ability to conduct dream energy and I really do not want to see whatever is in Mikey's dreams transmuted through a spirit board and manifested in any form.
> 
> Gerard is not, as far as I know, aware that his brother is in possession of this item.21
> 
>   
> 19 But won't be for various reasons beyond my control.  
> 20 As this object originated and possibly was even created in Fairy, I am using the widest definition possible of "realms" including but not limited to after-life realms, pre-afterlife realms, post-afterlife realms, and the spaces in-between.  
> 21 And I will not be held responsible for starting that fight.  
>   
> 

  
Frank lets the chill from the ice spread down this his chest and he wonders what it is Victoria might find when she starts her research today. It’s before he’s supposed to, but he sits up and removes the ice as soon as he hears Victoria arrive.

"I appreciate you letting me into the library," Victoria says to Schechter.

"It's not my decision, it's Gerard's," Schechter says, though it's mostly for Frank's benefit. Frank's not having any of it, though. "Anything for Frank," he says, his voice clipped.

"I can't guarantee I'll even be able to find anything here, but some background can't hurt."

"Anything you need, call for the valet, or Greta."

"Or me," Frank says.

"Don't call Frank," Schechter says. "He doesn't know his way around the library."

"I do, too."

Schechter stares at him. "Show Victoria where the Records of Iblis are."

Frank glares at Schechter. "OK, fine, I only know the case files."

"I'll call Greta,” Victoria says, “Or your zombie, he's quite friendly."

Frank all but paces outside of the library for an hour, waiting for an opportunity to casually wander in and ask Victoria what she’s found, but then Dewees is calling him for lunch, and it isn’t until he takes a seat at the table with Gerard and Mikey that he realizes he’s walked into the middle of a fight. He thinks Dewees ought to at least have warned him.

"What ever happened to the agreement we had where you stayed out of my business," Mikey says.

"We never had such an agreement," Gerard says. Mikey looks at him pointedly. "Whatever happened to your good sense?"

They glare at each other, and then Mikey asks Frank to pass the milk.

"If there's something you're worried I'm going to do since I'm so senseless, you could tell me what it is instead of evading my questions. "

"That's not what I'm doing," Gerard says. They glare again.

"Maybe we could change the subject?" Frank says and passes the milk to Mikey, who seems to have forgotten he asked for it and refuses to take it.

"Sure," Mikey says. "How are you feeling, Frank?"

Now Frank also joins in the glaring.

"Mikey if you would just remember how we were raised," Gerard says.

"What does that even mean?" Mikey says. "Are you Mom?"

"I meant about -"

"I don't care what you meant, you sound ridiculous. All you care about is proper behavior." He looks meaningfully at Frank. Frank didn't really expect to side with Mikey in this fight.

"So, I’m just going to go check on Victoria, see if she needs anything,” Frank says, extracting himself as quickly as possible and heading straight for the library without looking back.

"Find anything interesting?" he says, before he’s even all the way inside. Victoria smiles knowingly up at him.

"I did," Victoria says. "Or, well, it was what I didn't find that was interesting. I thought it was mere rumor, but in all recorded instances of the Trading, or rituals similar enough to have been forms of the Trading before it was named or banned, no Daylighter ever survived."

Frank gapes.

"There was one instance," Victoria continues, "The Pendergast Conjunction, where a Daylighter and vampire survived, but both died after two days. There are a few rituals that appear to have been magically aided, but the result is still the death of the Daylighter."

"Oh," Frank says.

"Oh no, Frank, I'm sorry, Gerard's not going to die," Victoria says, misunderstanding Frank's shock. "He's fine. It's been too long to be anything like any of those cases. It's just - unlikely Gerard survived, but he did, so, it's a first. There's always a first. There are always medical exceptions to the rule."

"Gerard always has been the exception to many rules," Frank says.

"See?" Victoria says looking less alarmed. "It's just Gerard."

 

Frank wanders down the corridors aimlessly, trying to wrap his head around what Victoria had found. No Daylighter survived the Trading before Gerard. He wonders if that's part of why Gerard didn't want to talk about it, if he was uncomfortable with being some sort of medical miracle. If he'd thought he wasn't going to survive, if he'd done this for Frank, knowing what could happen -

"What are you doing?" Dewees says, and when Frank looks, he realizes he's climbed halfway up the mezzanine balcony.

"I was just....checking to see if it was sturdy?"

"With a duster in your hands?" Dewees asks.

"What do you care if I'm dusting?" Frank says, climbing down. He's not sure when he picked up the duster, or how long he's been cleaning.

"I don't," Dewees says. "Less for me to do. Except that it's weird that you're acting like the servant staff when there's, you know, me."

"Maybe there are some things you forgot."

"Things that I - " Dewees says, and then reconsiders his approach. "Firstly, I'll give you that forgetting would be a valid concern if I were a normal zombie valet in a normal household. But I'm me, and this is not a normal household. Secondly, or actually still part of the firstly, I have a master, the head of household, the brother of the head of household, the sorcerer of the house, and the boyfriend of the head of household who also happens to be the former valet to tell me what to do. And thirdly, or, well, I've lost count, the former valet, who, in case you didn’t know, is you, left me this fucking journal full of detailed instructions on what I'm supposed to clean, not clean, arrange, re-arrange, un-arrange, and generally be doing for every person in every aspect of the household. So, what were you saying?"

"That you forgot to dust this part."

"I did not forget," Dewees says. "And even if I had, all you'd have to do is to shout my name, and tell me to dust it. There's no need for you to be climbing all over the place. Now give me the duster."

Frank hands the duster over. "Sometimes I just I don't know what to do with myself," Frank says.

"Get a hobby," Dewees says. “I’d recommend necromancy.”

"No, I mean," Frank sighs, and leans against the wall, shoves his hands in his pockets because he seems to need extra restraint to stay still. "I don't know what I'm supposed to do here."

"You don't know what you're supposed to do in your house."

"This is not my house," Frank says.

Dewees gives him a look.

"This isn't - it's not - "

"I'm going to give you a little lesson here, Frankie, something I've learned in my long life of being a zombie. Life is made up of binaries. It's either one thing or the other, and sometimes you make the choice yourself, or if you're me, you wait for someone to tell you which it is. In your pathetically stupid case, either you live here with your boyfriend, or you don't. Either you make the choice yourself or you wait for Gerard to make it for you, but I'll give you a clue, I think he already has. So we're back to my original point: the problem is with you."

"Gerard's on his way back," Frank says, thankful that hearing Gerard a mile off is enough of a distraction that he can just pretend he didn't hear a thing Dewees said. "I'll go fix up his room."

"No, you'll go sit on his bed and pretend you've been reading all night and now you're ready for some naked time before dawn."

"Oh my god, please don't ever say that again," Frank says.

"You're the one who's sleeping with him," Dewees says. "I'm sorry one of you has such an issue with being naked."

"We don't - we - Christ, stop it."

"Stop what?" Dewees says, in that same weird way, like he's waiting for Frank to say something specific.

"Stop talking about Gerard and me," Frank says. "And go dust the mezzanine."

Without another word, Dewees takes the stairs up, duster in hand.  
Despite not wanting to seem like he is taking Dewees' advice, Frank does settle himself on the bed and start reading, picking up the first book on the bedside table, a treatise on moss growth patterns that's actually so boring he's going to fall asleep, but then Gerard's in the door, and Frank closes the book, glances up at Gerard who's looking at him so warmly, so fondly, Franks is suddenly wide awake.

"Hi," Frank says.

"Hi," Gerard says, "Sorry I'm late." Gerard loosens his tie, sits down on the edge of the bed.

"You're not late," Frank says.

"You're reading my moss book. I'm late."

"I wouldn't say reading, so much as - holding." Gerard chuckles as Frank hands the book to him.

"You know, moss growth patterns are a really reliable indicator of Midnighter travel paths through wooded areas," Gerard says. "I could show you the next day - well, two days - after the rain, if you wanted to learn."

"Why would I ever need to know that?" Frank says.

Gerard shrugs. "Who knows when you'll need it for an investigation."

Frank feels like there's something Gerard's trying to tell him, but he can't figure it out.

Gerard kicks his shoes off, stretches his arms behind him on the pillow, and starts to tell Frank all about moss growth patterns whether or not he wants to know anything about moss at all. Frank settles close, then closer, and when he curls himself against Gerard's side, Gerard exhales and finally relaxes.  
Gerard goes looking for Mikey in the middle of the morning. Frank feels him slip out of bed and he knows Gerard's going to try and mend whatever happened during their argument, but Gerard returns too soon to have found Mikey at all.

"James says he left already," Gerard says miserably, sliding back under the covers, but he can't stay still. "I'm sorry," he says to Frank, the eighth time he turns from one side to the other and back again.

"We should just get up," Frank says.

"I could go check on the hydrangea vines," Gerard says. Frank's happy enough to encourage the distraction, getting them up and getting them both dressed for the day, because it means he has a chance to catch the Governor during her Daylighter office hours, and to follow up to see what she's found out about the werewolf called Bert.

"Frank, come here," Schechter says, after Gerard has gone into the greenhouse and Frank is just about to sneak out the back door. Frank puts down his sun-proof coat hurries over because Brian has that tone in his voice. "Frank."

"I'm here, I'm here," Frank says, and he skids to a halt outside the room where he's followed Brian's voice to and he is expecting a lab or a table full of papers like he's mostly seen lately. Inside the room are three grand pianos. Greta is seated at one of them.

"Is that - " Frank says, flinching.

"The very same," Greta says with a cheeky grin.

Patrick is at the other one, and he nods his still bare head at Frank.

"Sit," Schechter commands, pointing Frank at the third piano.

"I don't play!" Frank protests.

Schechter just shakes his head. "I need a control." Schechter says when Frank is still lingering at the door and being reluctant.

"A control?" Frank says. "You mean someone who can't play?"

"I suspect that you could manage to make some noise with your fingers on the keys, which is what I need," Schechter says, "so stop whining. Greta?" He says, and Greta begins a complicated lilting melody, and when Schechter holds his hands up, Frank feels the unmistakable static of magic in the air. Greta stops after repeating the melody twice, and then Schechter nods her to stop.

"Now you, Frank," Schechter says.

"Now me, what?" Frank says. He looks to Patrick for support, but Patrick's eyes are closed and he looks like he's concentrating.

"Play," Schechter says.

"I don't - "

"Magic!" Schechter says, quite impatiently, and so Frank presses his fingers to the keys and to his surprise, he begins to play. It's a mix between feeling like he's chasing the memory of the melody around in his head, and being directed by an invisible magic force that has only the gentlest pressure on his fingers.

"Whoa," Frank says, and feels the tug to complete the same repetition of the melody Greta did.

"Good," Schechter says, when Frank stops. "Good. Now you - "

"I can't, Brian," Patrick says, and Frank's surprised at how upset Patrick sounds.

"It's ok, it didn't hurt," Frank says, trying to reassure Patrick, but his face looks even more pained.

"Come on, Patrick, don't fight me," Schechter says. He doesn’t mean his orders, but the magic, because Frank can feel the static increase as Brian steps closer.

Patrick raises his fingers to the keys and just - nothing happens. He can't even seem to lower them to the keys. Brian steps closer, reaching around Patrick's shoulders, puts his hands almost over Patrick's hands. Brian's eyes are looking somewhere inside the piano, and Patrick's looking like he's trying to lift the piano off the ground through the power of his hands.

"I can't, Brian, I swear to you, I'm trying not to fight it, I'm not even thinking about it, but it's just - "

Patrick sighs, sits back - except that he sits back into Brian's arms. His face relaxes for a moment and then he seems to realize what he's done and sits back up, spine straight. Brian slowly pulls away, the static of magic still heavy in the air.

"Strange," Schechter says, and shakes his hands out, but there's still all the magic in them and so Greta and Frank both immediately start playing Ride of the Valkyries until Schechter waves his hand and the music stops.

"Can you see how it's the Curse of the Ninth now?" Patrick says. "I can't create anything."

"That wasn't creation," Brian says. "That was mimicry. You should have been able to play that."

"But it would have been creating music - "

"But that's what I'm telling you," Brian says. "Greta created the music, and I made you and Frank receptacles to receive it and return it."

"Don't call me a receptacle," Frank says. No one's listening to him.

"But how else do you explain it?" Patrick says. "We're coming up on the ninth complete re-release of the Clan Code, and I can't - "

"Come on," Greta says, suddenly at Frank's side, scooting him up from the piano bench. "Go back home," Greta says to the piano, which, much to Frank's alarm, lifts itself off the ground and soars around the room for a second and just when it looks like it's going to make a rush for the door, causing Frank some serious panic, it disappears.

"Impressive," Frank says.

"Thank you," Greta says. "I've been practicing." She shuts the door, but just before, Frank sees Brian hauling Patrick up from the piano bench with a few emphatic gestures.

"So why does Patrick still think he has the Curse of the Ninth?" Frank says. "Schechter seems pretty sure he doesn't, and I'm generally inclined to believe Schechter, especially when he's shouting at me."

Greta laughs. "It's weird," she says, "Because it's true, he is exhibiting signs of it. The Curse of the Ninth stops you from being able to create - usually geared towards the method in which you create most often, which in Patrick's case is writing, but then it starts to grow outward, stopping you from being able to make anything, like music and ultimately even a sandwich. People have starved to death with the Curse of the Ninth gone untreated long enough."

"And so the thing you played, and I copied - "

"That's exactly it," Greta says. "You copied it. You basically just repeated it back. Brian turned up your echo. And it should have worked for Patrick."

Gerard comes down the stairs at a clip with two pages that look like they've been torn out of a very old book in his hands and he grins at Frank and Greta and says, "The ivy is creeping in reverse!" and continues off down the hall, then abruptly turns. "Did I hear Ride of the Valkyries earlier?" Gerard asks. Frank nods. "Excellent!" Gerard says. "I'll be in the greenhouse," he says, and turns to go, then turns back. "But Frank, don't let me spend more than an hour, I'm not kidding, come and knock at the door."

"Yes, sir," Frank says, and Gerard grins and continues off. So there's no way he's going to be able to sneak out now. He feels Greta staring at him.

"Did you just call him ‘sir?’" she asks.

"It's a hard habit to break!" Frank protests.

"I don't think that's a habit," Greta says, and then turns off down to Schechter's office leaving Frank in the middle of the foyer, thinking about flying pianos and valet instincts.  
After dinner, with Gerard reviewing files in his office, Frank thinks he's finally going to be able to do some kind – any kind – of investigating into the werewolf called Bert. Frank closes the front door as quietly as he can, but it doesn't matter, because Dewees has already seen him. He's sweeping the front walkway, short, controlled, repetitive strokes that send the small pebbles scattering. It's the middle of the moon cycle and it hangs, yellow and half-obscured. Dewees has clearly just replaced all the lanterns, refilled all the oil, because they're burning bright along the path, setting the front yard in a yellow glow.

Frank walks down the path, his hands in his pockets, staying clear of Dewees' sweeping.

"What's up, man?" Frank asks.

"I am finding sweeping very meditative," Dewees says. "It's surprising."

"You've never swept much before?"

"Hardly ever," Dewees says. "Mostly I just opened the windows and let the wind blow things around in your apartment."

"You never swept at your master's house?" Frank asks.

"Never been in his house," Dewees says. "How's your cough?"

It's as though it was fine until Dewees asks, and Frank tries to choke away a fit of coughing. "No different," Frank says, because there's no way he can manage the 'fine' anymore.

"And the case you're working on?"

"Why are you asking about the case?" Frank asks.

Dewees makes a kind of shrug. "Don't know," he asks. "Maybe someone told me it was polite to make small talk about work."

Frank shakes off his suspicion. "I'm not working on any cases," Frank says, deliberately not mentioning the Governor's case. He's not sure whether Dewees even knows about it, or why he's suddenly suspicious about what Dewees knows.

"You been to the Fairy Quarter lately?" Dewees asks.

"Not really," Frank says. "Why? And what's with all the questions?"

Dewees shrugs again.

"Is this because you heard Greta say you were creepily silent?" Frank asks.

"She said that?" Dewees says. "I'm not creepily silent. I'm not silent, at least."

"Well, she seemed to think so. So is that why you're giving me the third degree of randomness?"

"Maybe," Dewees says non-commitally.

"Really, man, what's wrong?" Frank asks.

Dewees stops sweeping and looks up at Frank. "I don't know," he says, after what appears to be serious consideration.

"You don't have to stay here and be a valet if it's making you unhappy."

"It's not making me unhappy," Dewees says.

"Ok," Frank says. "You'd tell me though, if you were unhappy?"

"I'd try," Dewees says, and then he starts sweeping again.

Frank doesn't even get to decide where he's going to go first, to the Governor's Mansion or to the werewolf quarter when he runs into Jamia.

"Hi," Frank says. "Just passing by?"

"Yes, I really enjoy lurking outside of your house trying to think up excuses for why I'm calling on you in the middle of the night. Tell me you're on your way to the protest."

"I was actually going to go see Lindsey," Frank says, and tries to sound definitive about it.

"Well, she'll just tell you to go to the protest with me, because he's going to be there."

"Oh," Frank says.

"Ok, fine, we'll walk all the way to the Governor's Mansion so you can have Lindsey tell you what I just told you. It's fine, I left my gloves in my office anyway. Come on."  
There's a shadow by the lamp halfway up the path to the Governor's mansion, and Frank stops says, "Who's there?" before he realizes that he knows. "Gerard?" Jamia's already at the door and she doesn't notice that Frank's not still right behind her.

Gerard steps out of the shadows. He looms in the lamplight, taller, broader in the lamplight of the path. "I'm sorry to startle you, Frank," he says.

"It's ok," Frank says, taken aback by the seriousness in his voice, in how closed off he seems. "Do you have an appointment with the Governor?"

"Apparently," Gerard says. "Though I think I'm early."

"Jamia's just gone in to see her," Frank says, and then realizes he's thrown out any chance of seeming like he was here by chance or some other believable lie.

"I see," Gerard says. "Are you going back to the mansion now?"

"I was going to see if I could catch up with Mikey," Frank says.

"At the protest," Gerard says, and Frank's agreeing before he realizes he hadn't said he was going to the protest.

"Right," Frank says. "So if I catch up with him, do you want us to come back and get you once your meeting is done?"

"No," Gerard says, "Thank you, Frank, I have some other business to attend to. I'll see you later."

Frank feels like he's been caught doing something wrong, and he wants to go back and pick a fight with Gerard about it. When Frank had left the mansion, Gerard had been in his office, and so if anything was wrong, it was the fact that Gerard had waited until Frank was gone to leave.

Frank doesn't tell Jamia about seeing Gerard, and she doesn't tell him "I told you so" when Frank barely has his head in the Governor's office before she's asking him to go to the protest to see if the werewolf called Bert actually shows up.

It's not until he sees the first straggling crowds at the edge of the protest that it occurs to him that Gerard might not have had an appointment with the Governor at all. Which would mean that either Gerard was following him - which gives Frank a strange kind of thrill because as weird as it is, it would mean he has Gerard's attention - or Gerard's case is intersecting with the Governor’s, which makes Frank want to go back and warn Lindsey. That's the thing with Gerard on a case - once he's on the trail, there's no way he's not going to find the solution. Which means if Lindsey is still set on figuring this out without involving Gerard, she's going to need to rethink her plan.

Frank's getting swept up in the protest crowd. It's larger than he thought it was going to be - possibly because there seem to be a counter group for every group - there are White Hands and there are Daylighters who don't like the Midnighters but don't like the White Hands. There are Clan Officials and there are a few Midnighters protesting the Clan Code. There are Daylighters protesting the exact placement of the zoning, who are fine with mixed neighborhoods as long as they're somewhere else.

Frank finds Mikey with a sign that says, "You can't judge a Midnighter by the time of day they do their shopping." Pete's a few feet away, talking animatedly to a group of startled looking Daylighters.

"He's explaining how sun shielding works," Mikey says. "Hi Jamia."

"How's it going?" Jamia asks.

"Uneventful," Mikey says. "Like Pete says, if we change one person's mind just a little bit, it's worth it."

"Is Alicia here?" Frank says. Jamia all but kicks him in the shin.

Mikey snorts. "What's with your sudden interest in Alicia?"

"Fuck you, I'm just asking." Frank says.

"Sure," Mikey says. "Just asking. She's here somewhere."

"Subtle," Jamia whispers.

There's a chant that's trying to get started, several voices tripping over each other to say things at the same time. Something about community lines. Frank can't tell who it's about, who it's directed to.

There's a sudden burst of light in the middle of the street, and several people shield their eyes. Frank squints into the brightness and realizes it's a bundle of herbs emitting the light, burning in a too-bright white flame.

"That's not right," Frank says. It starts sizzling and spitting sparks, and the crowd is starting to back away from it in a panic.

Some of the White Hands start a loud shout about unnatural magic. Then the werewolf called Bert appears.

"Fire's bad, fire's very, very bad," he shouts, and the crowd gives him a wide berth. "Gonna catch your coat on fire!" he says, waggling a finger at one of the Daylighters holdings signs. "You Daylighters love fire, don't you? You'd set everything ablaze if you could, wouldn't you? You'd set the sky on fire!"

"Wow, he's even crazier than I'd remembered," Jamia says.

The light is twisting up toward the sky and then it abruptly stops when Alicia, who appeared from in the middle of the crowd, bends down and picks up the bundle of herbs. Several people around are blinking to adjust their eyes to the return of the dark.

"Oooh, who put the pretty light out?" the werewolf called Bert asks.

"Alicia?" Pete asks, "What is it?"

"Something that doesn't belong here," Alicia says, looking at the bundle of herbs. She twists her fingers and the herbs crumble to dust, which she examines in the palm of her hand before blowing away into nothing in the air.

"Oh, hi, Fairy lady," the werewolf called Bert shouts across the street, having spotted Alicia. "Why'd you put out the light?"

"Isn't that a solstice bough?" Mikey asks. Alicia beams at him and ignores the werewolf called Bert. "Gerard used to make them, sometimes," he says. "Our grandmother did, too. Though we never lit them."

"You're not supposed to," Alicia says. "That kind of light's for the equinox."

"So," Frank says, baffled, "It's not the solstice and it wasn't even supposed to be lit, so what's it doing here? Did someone here make it?" Everyone knows who he means.

"Possibly," Alicia says, looking around, "Though it's more likely someone misunderstood the ritual."

"Why'd he be doing a ritual at a protest?" Jamia asks. "Isn't he too crazy to be doing a ritual?"

"Lots of energy," Alicia says. "Not a bad place for a ritual, if you were going to do one." Frank is once again completely uncomfortable at how creepy Alicia can be. "We should go," Alicia says abruptly and Frank realizes it's because the crowd is parting and werewolf called Bert is coming in their direction. "Goodnight, Frank," she says, "Or did you want to come back to Decaydance with us?"

"You were looking for Alicia, here she is," Mikey says. Frank wants to kick him.

"Were you?" Alicia says. "I'm flattered, Frank."

Frank sighs. "I'm going back to the mansion. See you later."

"You really don't suspect Alicia?" Frank asks Jamia as he walks with her back to her apartment.

"Suspect her of what?" Jamia says.

"Of…" Frank's about to say 'being evil' and but thankfully catches himself. "Threatening Lindsey."

"That's ridiculous, Frank," Jamia says. "Alicia's been Lindsey's friend for a long time."

"It's just that she's always at these places where weird things happen," Frank says.

"Well, so are you," Jamia says.  
When Frank gets back to the Way Mansion, Mikey's coming up the path with the signs posts from the protest he drops them twice in a row.

"I think I got a splinter," Mikey says as Frank comes over and helps him gather up the posts and put them away in the shed.

Frank says, "You didn't stay at Decaydance long." Mikey rolls his eyes and heads up the walkway to Mansion.

"Michael, what in god's name are you wearing?"

Frank, who is a few steps behind, slams into him as Mikey stops abruptly on the doorstep.

"You didn't," Mikey hisses at his brother, who's standing just inside the front door. "You did not call Mom."

"I did," Gerard says evenly.

"How could you call Mom about this!" Mikey glares at his brother, and at Frank for good measure.

"I'm as surprised as you are," Frank says. Gerard shoots him a look. "Sorry," he says to Gerard. "But no one likes getting surprised by their mother."

"Be careful or I'll call your mother next," Gerard says. Frank immediately shuts his mouth tight.

"Boys, come in," Donna Way shouts from down the hall. "Don't leave the door hanging open for the whole night to get in." Mikey reluctantly steps in, then stumbles a few more steps as Gerard shoves him forward. "Come here, give your mother a kiss," she says, grabbing Mikey and kissing him noisily on the cheek, then grabbing for Gerard.

"My boys," Donna says, then reaches for Frank.

"Mrs.- "

"Call. Me. Donna." She says in a warm yet alarmingly authoritative tone.

"Donna," Frank says, and she squeezes him tight. Mikey snorts.

"Now Michael," she says, letting Frank go and turning to Mikey, who immediately hunches. "What is this?"

"It's a coat," Mikey says.

"I mean the vampire fashion," Donna says. "Don't think I don't keep up with the Midnighter scene. I know high collars are coming in as the new retro."

"It's not about the fashion," Gerard says.

"No, of course it's not," Donna says. Frank tries to edge away at the familiar tone of a Mom about to launch into an uncomfortable session of prying.

"Mom," Mikey says. "I don't want to talk about Pete."

"Everyone wants to talk about Pete," Donna says. "But I won't make you talk about your boyfriend if you don't want to share that sort of information with your mother."

"He's not my- "

"Mikey -" Gerard says.

"All I want to know," Donna says, in a voice strangely reminiscent of Gerard when he was interviewing a suspect, "is what your grandmother would think."

"Mom," Mikey whines.

"What would she say?"

"I'm not reciting the three most important parts in front of Frank. It's for little kids."

"What does it matter if Frank hears them? They're good for him, if Elena was around she'd make him recite them, too."

"The three most important parts of what?" Frank asks.

Mikey sighs, looks to Frank, who shrugs, then at Gerard, who holds up his thumb. Frank thinks it's some sort of go ahead, thumbs up gesture, until Mikey and then Donna does the same.

"The first part is your hand, which pushes and pulls, opens and closes."

Mikey flips out his index finger, adding it to the count. "The second part is your knees, which allow you to bend when you need to be flexible and kneel when you're too tall."

"And the third part?" Donna says.

Mikey says, and flips another finger to the count. "The third part is your neck, which holds up your head, and lets you choose between looking up and down."

Frank watches, puzzled, waiting for the explanation. "It's not about my neck," Mikey says.

"It's about where your eyes are looking," Gerard says.

"It's a metaphor," Frank says, suddenly breaking from the literalness. He'd thought something was wrong with Mikey's neck, about the feeding and the collar but - oh. "Sorry."

"You know I'm fine if you're dating Pete," Donna says. "I'm fine if you're not. I'm fine if you don't want to talk to me about it, but, you need to talk to your brother, and, you need to remember that where your eyes look is where your feet take you. So if you're looking in the wrong direction, you'll just end up there. Now show me the greenhouse," Donna says to Gerard, "I haven't been in since last winter and Mikey says you got the larkspur to hum."

Gerard and Donna walk off to the greenhouse, and Mikey kind of slumps, then looks nervously at Frank.

"My family's weird."

"No lie," Frank says, and Mikey reaches out and smacks him. "I kind of wish I'd met your grandmother."

"Don't rule it out," Mikey says. "For all I know, she's a fucking time traveler."  
Frank sends a message to the Governor while Gerard is showing his mother the greenhouse, asking if they can meet to talk about what happened at the protest and whether or not the Governor has any new information. He figures he has enough time to sneak out to the diner while Donna is here and be back again before anyone notices he’s missing.

Jamia and the Governor are already at the diner when Frank arrives, and Frank wonders if Jamia actually went into her apartment before heading straight back to the Governor's Mansion. The same waitress who served them before brings them coffee and waffles and an extra fork for Frank.

Frank stifles a cough and Jamia glares at him.

"I know you didn’t think that the werewolf called Bert was capable of that kind of ritual,” Frank says, before Jamia can ask him how he’s feeling.

"I didn’t say he wasn’t capable, I just said he wasn’t sane enough,” Jamia says.

“I can’t see him making that kind of demonstration, though,” Lindsey says. “The distraction is his style, but not magical plant bombs.”

"What if the werewolf called Bert arranged for someone else to do the ritual so that he could take advantage of the crowd’s panic?”

"Well done, Frank," Gerard says, and everyone freezes. Gerard takes the empty spot at the booth next to Frank.

"Gerard," Frank says, hesitating.

"I mean it, this has been a skilled investigation."

"Thanks," Frank says, cautiously, Gerard beams at him.

"Governor," Gerard says. "Jamia."

"Detective," Lindsey says, mocking his formality, and he smirks.

"Hello Gerard," Jamia says, though she scowls at Frank.

"What?" Frank says.

"You told him," she hisses.

"He didn't," Gerard says. "Now what I want to know," Gerard says, turning his attention to Lindsey, "Is why you didn't hire me. Frank is clearly representing the agency well, but I thought we had a working relationship."

"The case is - " Lindsey starts.

"I know what the case is," Gerard says before she can finish.

"You do?" Lindsey asks, at the same time Frank asks, "How long?"

"I had suspicions immediately," Gerard says, "Jamia is strong enough to move all of her furniture herself," Gerard says. Jamia reluctantly smiles at him.

"Someone wants to know what you know about me," Gerard says to the Governor. "Don't worry, I can handle the questions. But what you're leaving out is they way they're attempting to stop you from passing the Mindless Act."

Frank can tell by the way Lindsey is frowning that Gerard's right about what she's been holding back. Jamia sees it, too.

"What really gave it away," Gerard continues, "Was when I found out who set up that first meet for you with the supposed contact in Fairy. It was Adam, wasn't it?"

"Lindsey," Jamia says, quietly. "Tell me it wasn't Adam."

Lindsey doesn't answer, but it's as good as a yes. Jamia throws down her napkin, goes to get up from the booth. Lindsey stops her with a hand on her arm.

"He seemed like he wanted to help," Lindsey says.

"You promised me you wouldn't have anything more to do with him," Jamia says.

"Are we talking about Adam Lazarra?" Frank asks, "Our neighbor?"

"Adam Lambert," Gerard says, "He's a leanashe, he lives with the fairies now, but it's complicated."

"We all thought Adam was a Daylighter," Lindsey says, "Certain kinds of leanashe can pass for Daylighters, especially ones as old as Adam. He worked as a clerk in the Governor's office my first year as Lt. Governor. He advised on Midnighter Cooperation Policy as the Clan Code was going into effect."

"But I thought leanashe have a Tier 7 Supernatural Lethality rating."

"Yes, exactly," Jamia says. She then pays a lot of attention to stirring her coffee.

"He killed three people," Lindsey says. "It seemed like a string of accidents before, but then, one of the victim's families hired Gerard because of the suspicious circumstances."

"It didn't take me long to figure out Adam wasn't who he claimed to be," Gerard says, "And he certainly wasn't a Daylighter. Leanashe's are something like vampires, but they don't feed on blood so much as….life. The situations surrounding the deaths were complex, and there was the possibility that they were voluntary, and it was one of the first cases of mixed Daylighter-Midnighter law. Eventually, everyone agreed that Adam would be relocated to the Midnighter community and barred from Daylighter contact, everyone believing he would have a harder time accidentally killing a Midnighter."

"Lindsey defended him," Jamia says.

"I did," Lindsey says. "I believed the deaths were accidental, and I believed Adam was genuinely trying to live as a Daylighter because it was the community that suited him best, not because he was trying to prey on us."

Jamia makes a disgusted sound and takes Lindsey's coffee and switches it with her empty mug. Lindsey's smile briefly appears on her face.

"You're leaving out the best part," Jamia says.

"He was also a suspect in the attack on Pete after the Clan Code passed," Lindsey admits reluctantly.

"Oh," Frank says, "The fairies."

"His involvement was never proven," Gerard says, and then considers before adding, "I did always suspect he may have been involved in some way I could not prove," He gives an apologetic shrug to Lindsey.

"He could be a useful ally in this situation," Lindsey says. "I heard he's not with either court in Fairy."

"Can that happen?" Frank says,

"Yes," Gerard says, "it's possible, but it's not ever actually a good situation. It's usually because neither court will accept him."

Frank thinks about how Spencer had refused both courts. Whatever happened with this Adam guy and Fairy was probably not that simple.

"So when he contacted me - "

"You got stupid," Jamia says. "And decided to take him at his word." Lindsey sighs.

"Adam's situation is more complex then he has led you to believe," Gerard says. "It appears he's involved with the rogue faction led by the werewolf called Bert."

Jamia slams down her napkin, gets up and goes straight out the door. Lindsey rushes after her.

Frank turns to Gerard. "So," Frank says.

"I'm not mad, Frank," Gerard says. "I know Lindsey asked you not to tell me about the case, and that you were trying to protect me."

Frank's surprised at the easy forgiveness, and waits for the other shoe to drop, but Gerard isn't saying anything else. Frank wonders if now's a good time to bring up Gerard's secret. He told Lindsey he could handle the questions. But Frank's too afraid of getting shut down to ask directly, so instead he asks, "Do you know who it is, who's after the Governor?"

"Not specifically," Gerard says. "Not yet. There are several threads leading in several directions. To Fairy, to the Shallow Believers, to the White Hand. There are too many people who don't want the Mindless Act passed, and they are frequently the same people who would like to have some leverage against me, before I manage to connect them to their crimes."

"Jamia's pretty upset about Adam," Frank says.

"The events in the Governor's Office a few years ago were pretty ugly," Gerard says. "I think she's worried about Lindsey ending up one of Adam's ‘accidental’ victims."

"So you think he was guilty, too?"

"Leanashe are powerful," Gerard says. "They've been around a long time. Most of what they do isn't an accident."

Lindsey comes back in and opens her wallet. "I'll take care of the check," Gerard says.

"I'm sorry," Lindsey says. "I can't stay. Jamia's upset with me, and –"

"I'll make an appointment for tomorrow," Gerard says. "I'm not worried, Lindsey." Gerard adds, when Lindsey looks like she's going to argue. "I appreciate all that you've done to try to keep me out of it, but I can handle it."

She nods, and rushes off. "Should we go home and compare notes?" Gerard says. Frank's still not sure why Gerard's being so easy on him, but Frank agrees, and they take the carriage home.  
"Frank," Gerard says, as they're setting up to review the case file in Gerard's office. Gerard pauses with his hands halfway to his pockets, like he’s about to pull out his handkerchief. "Are you dating the Governor?" He look looks almost horrified that he’s spoken. Frank knows that expression; it’s the one Gerard gets when he’s been thinking something for so long it’s not clear there’s a difference between the voice in his head and his speaking voice.

"Am I what?" Frank asks.

"All of the evidence suggests -"

"The evidence," Frank bites out.

"You have been spending a lot of time with her," Gerard throws back. Frank gapes at him.

"I’ve been spending a lot of time with Jamia, too. You don’t think we’re getting back together?"

"Well, you weren’t keeping your visits with Jamia secret," Gerard says matter-of-factly. "Of course I understand if the two of you are interested in political discretion considering the current - "

"Gerard," Frank says, and Gerard stops. "Shut up."

"No, of course, it’s none of my business, I merely wanted you to - "

"Gerard," Frank says, because he’s starting to lose his temper and it’s only going to get worse if Gerard keeps talking.

"Of course, of course, Frank, who you’re dating is none of my – "

"I was under the impression," Frank says, stepping forward and shoving Gerard. "That I was dating you. Except that we can't be seen together, we can't go on cases together, you can't look at me wrong in public and - "

"So you'd rather spend your time with the Governor?"

"I'd rather spend the time with you," Frank says, "But you won't let me, and so instead of being bored out of my mind and totally useless, I went and took a case." It's the easiest explanation, the one that bypasses the whole messy business of whatever Gerard is hiding.

"You did a wonderful job with the case," Gerard says quietly.

"Don't compliment me right now."

"I'm sorry," Gerard says quietly.

"Why in the world would you think I was dating the Governor?"

"The trips out to the diner, the regularity with which you stopped by her office, the mail you sent her – "

"And you thought that was totally reasonable, that I'd go and start dating someone else - the Governor no less - without talking to you?"

"No, it wasn't reasonable," Gerard says, even more quietly.

"Then what?" Frank demands.

"I was sure I'd pushed you away," Gerard says and there's the first note of genuine emotion that isn't from the well-reasoned detective this whole conversation. "I've spent all this time trying to make sure you were safe and make certain people didn't find out things they....shouldn't," he says, "And then I realize I've been neglecting you, shutting you out. And when I finally start paying attention to you, I - "

"You were what?"

"I was jealous," Gerard shouts, and Frank is so glad he's finally hearing the truth that it takes him a moment to realize that he and Gerard have backed their way against the wall and that Gerard's head is just inches from the painting of the mansion grounds 50 years ago. "The thought of you seeing someone else - I was so jealous." They're nose to nose, now, both of them breathing heavy. Frank's hands are tight in Gerard's suit jacket.

"Good," Frank says, and he leans in and bites Gerard's jaw. Gerard closes his eyes, tense and unmoving. "Fucking serves you right."

"You could be as mad at me as you wanted, as long as I was keeping you safe," Gerard says like it's all against his will, these words spilling out. "The idea that you were seeing someone else, that you wanted someone - I couldn't stand it," Gerard says. He raises his hands like he's considering pushing Frank away but stops just short.

"I hope it was burning you up inside," Frank hisses.

"It still is," Gerard says.

"If you're so fucking jealous," Frank says, biting Gerard's jaw again, and then pulling back the collar of his shirt to lick up his neck. Gerard shudders. "Then start acting like it." The next thing he knows, he's being grabbed and shoved back against the wall, Gerard reversing their positions. Frank would like the way Gerard is holding him still if he wasn't so fucking angry.

"Frank," Gerard says, eyes wide and intense, leaning close, "I can't afford to be jealous."

Frank shoves him away, but Gerard's arms are tight and they both end up just crashing back against the wall. "What the fuck does that mean?"

"If anyone were to see just how important you are to me," Gerard starts to say but Frank struggles until he's breaking free, momentum carrying him to the middle of the room.

"Is there anyone else around right now?" Frank says, and he's practically shouting. Gerard doesn't answer. "So it's just me. I'm the one you can't let see any part of you."

"Frank - "

"No," Frank says. "Fuck you, you're such an idiot."

"Frank," Gerard says, and he's right there, right in Frank's space. He settles his hands on either side of Frank's face. Frank tries to shake him off but Gerard is too close, holding too tight. His eyes are wide, open, searching. "I want you to know everything there is to know about me."

"But there are all these things you won't let me see," Frank says. His voice is soft, and he feels himself being soothed by the way Gerard is holding him still the way he's touching him, like he's trying to tell Frank something he can't put into words.

"I know," Gerard says. His mouth brushes over Frank's and Frank can't help but chase it. Gerard doesn't kiss him, just brushes their lips together again.

"I don't understand," Frank says, frustrated. Gerard just holds him, brushing their mouths together in a not-quite kiss.

"You want me to show you how jealous I am?" Gerard says, voice low, and Frank feels heat curl in his belly. He wants an answer to all his questions, but he'll take this. Gerard's licking the corners of Frank's mouth, still holding back.

"Yeah," Frank says. Gerard grins.

"Come with me to the werewolf fancy dress ball," Gerard says. He licks Frank's bottom lip, pulls back before Frank can bring their mouths together.

"What?" Frank asks, feeling stupid and distracted by the way Gerard's dragging his teeth across Frank's chin.

"Come with me to the ball," Gerard repeats, his voice going silky. He brushes his wet lips over Frank's, letting Frank's bottom lip catch on his teeth and then letting go. "As my date."

"You're serious," Frank says.

"Say yes," Gerard says, still teasing at a kiss.

"If you mean it," Frank says, though the last word is a gasp because Gerard sucks his bottom lip, then let's it go.

"I mean it," Gerard says, not looking away.

"Ok, yes," Frank says, and Gerard finally, finally kisses him. Frank groans into it as soon as their lips meet, and they kiss for so long, Gerard so attentive, so aggressive, that Frank forgets why his body is still so tense with anger, lets the anger ebb into a different kind of adrenaline, let's Gerard's mouth apologize without words.  
He doesn't really believe Gerard means it; he doesn't even realize he doesn't believe it until Dewees is escorting in a tailor the next day

"For your suit for the ball, sir," the tailor says.

"I thought about being a tailor," Dewees says, as the gentleman takes out a measuring tape and starts measuring Frank's arms, legs, neck, and waist.

"When did you think about being a tailor?" Frank says, as the tailor darts around, measuring him. "Do you even know how to sew?"

"How do you think I reattach things when they come off?" Dewees says.

"With a needle and thread? I thought that was zombie magic or some shit," Frank says.

"Well the fact that it reattaches is part of necromancy," Dewees says "But you need to set it, it's not like I can just hold my finger in place and wish it back on."

"When did you lose a finger?" Frank asks. Dewees doesn't say anything. "Show me," Frank says, and Dewees holds out his right hand, the third finger with a band of stitches around it like a ring. "What happened?"

"Normal valet accident," Dewees says evasively.

"I never cut off my finger when I was a valet," Frank says.

Whatever Dewees' response would be is lost when Gerard comes in.

"Mr. Seabury," Gerard says. The tailor snaps to attention.

"Mr. Way, sir, I am almost completed my measurements of Mr. Iero. Would you like to discuss materials?"

"Yes, Gerard says. "Frank, do you have a color preference?"

"Uh," Frank says. He's so startled that Gerard is so openly having a suit made for Frank, and all that implies, that he has no idea how to answer a question about color preference "Black?"

Gerard laughs. "You have material swatches?"

"Of course, sir," the tailor responds. From his bag, he produces a booklet, and starts paging through. He lays it open on the desk, and Frank looks, Gerard peering over his shoulder.

"See anything you like, Frank?" Gerard's voice is close to his ear and Gerard shivers.

"You should wear something with grey accents," Dewees says.

"I quite agree, James," Gerard says.

"Can you just - pick something?" Frank asks Gerard desperately.

"Of course, Frank," Gerard says, smoky, and Frank flushes.  
Gerard kisses him slow and sleepy before going out for his meeting with the board for rezoning.

"You sure you don't want to come?" Gerard asks.

"Oh I want to come," Frank says, and Gerard laughs and kisses him, "but no rezoning, they want to hear from you, not me."

"But you're a Midnighter, Frankie, your opinion has power in the debate."

"There are countless vampires who will say exactly what I'd say, and better," Frank says. "I'll sleep in, and then take a long bath, and then get dressed for the ball."

"The ball," Gerard says, and he leans in and whispers, "Where you'll be my date."

Frank wants to hide his face in the pillow at that, but he can't tell Gerard how he's nervous or whatever it is he's feeling, so instead he tugs Gerard down for another long, lingering kiss.

"Frank," Gerard says, laughing against his mouth. "I have half a mind to leave the rezoning debate to everyone else and stay right here."

"You'll regret it later, though, I know how much it matters when you're there. You're the most famous Daylighter resident of the Midnighter community," Frank says.

Something flickers over Gerard's face and for a second Frank's afraid he's somehow accidentally insulted him. But then Gerard kisses him quickly and sits up.

"You're right, Frankie, I really ought to go. And besides," he says, catching Frank's eyes and holding his gaze. "I'll have you all to myself tonight."

Frank does hide his face in the pillow then, but it feels justified, and Gerard just laughs. "I'll see you soon," he had said.

Frank is still thinking of the promise in Gerard’s eyes as he prepares his bath. He pulls off his t-shirt and checks the water, but before he undoes his pants, he freezes, hands on the edge of the tub, because when he looks down at his chest, something is wrong. He hasn't wished in so long that he could look in a mirror and actually see his reflection, because he thinks - no, he's sure, as soon as he rubs his fingers over and over the spot - that the scar where Ryan Ross' arrow had pierced chest - is gone.

Frank closes his eyes, undresses, gets into the bath, ducks his head under - and then lets his fingers trail over his chest. The skin where the scar was is just as smooth as it was before, lines of ink unbroken from collarbone to his stomach. No raised pink diamond shape scar.

It isn't as if he ever really paid that much attention to the scar. It was too intense most of the time, too much of a reminder how close to death he'd come, how much Gerard had risked for him. The only times he's really felt that it was ok, that it was not something wrong, some terrible memory, was when Gerard was touching him there. Frank puts it out of his mind, because it’s too strange, too unsettling, and he lets the bathwater cover over his chest so he can’t see anything’s wrong.  
Gerard spends the time Franks getting dressed in the office wrapping up the minutes for the rezoning board. Dewees is hovering, trying to helpfully point out various things Frank could do to look sharper.

"You’re wearing a tie?" Dewees says. There are three in front of him on a hanger. Frank stares and Dewees comes over and pulls the tie in the middle off the rack and hands it to Frank. Frank fumbles the tie and Dewees comes over to help. "Are you nervous?" Dewees asks, his mouth quirking. "You nervous going on a date with your boyfriend?"

"No," Frank says but then he fumbles his cufflinks. "Its just, he's acting like..."

"Like he wants to take you to the ball and flirt with you all night so he can come back and bone you when you're finally begging for it?"

"Fuck you man," Frank says. "He just said for so long that he wanted to keep up secret."

"Are you having second thoughts?" Dewees says mockingly. "You think maybe you can do better than the greatest detective of our time?"

"Fucking shut up man and help me with my tie."

"Frank?" Gerard says, down the hall. "Have you seen James? I want him to get the carriage."

Frank quickly pushes Dewees away and tries to tell him not to show he's been here helping Frank because that just looks pathetic.

"I'm just about to get the carriage," Dewees says, ignoring Frank's flailing. "I was bringing Frank more hot water," he says and then opens the door and walks out. Gerard catches the door just as Frank's shrugging on his suit jacket.

Frank feels Gerard's eyes on him, and he looks up coyly.

"Hi," Gerard says.

"Hi," Frank says. "Do you like the suit?"

"Oh, I do," Gerard says, stepping forward and tracing his fingers over the lapel of Frank's jacket. Frank notices Gerard's holding a plant cutting in his hands, a small stem of purple flowers.

"Is that from the greenhouse?" Frank asks. Gerard smiles and presses a straight pin gently through the stem of the flowers and then pins them to Frank's lapel.

"Viscaria," Gerard says. "It sways to music, like a dancing couple. Appropriate for tonight, don't you think?"

Frank lets the warmth of Gerard's attention wash over him as they walk to the carriage. Except he can't help but think about how Gerard's fingers, and now the flower, were so close to the place on his chest where the scar used to be.  


>  **From the recording of All Magical Individuals/Groups or Parties Representing Individuals with a Supernatural Lethality Rating Over Three 22**
> 
> Subset of Persons of Interest: Threats, Enemies, Dangerous Individuals: Gerard does not know that I keep a list of his enemies, and he would most certainly object to the use of the word "enemy." The list is broken into categories of threat, threat capacity, and the individual's awareness of the threat they pose to Gerard.
> 
> Individuals on this list with a supernatural lethality rating of over 5  
> 1\. The werewolf called Bert (most recently the issue of the Quinn case)  
> 2\. Matt Rubano (from the contested issue of the Lazarra inheritance)  
> 3\. Adam Lambert (from the contested the findings of the Wentz case)  
> 4\. Alicia Simmons (no known grudge or vendetta, but by merely existing, she poses a threat)  
> 5\. The unnamed head of the Unseelie Court, see above re: the same issue as Alicia  
> 6\. Jon Walker (from the demon binding of Brendon Urie)  
>   
> 22 This could be its own book alone. My head of household runs a _detective agency_. 

  
As the carriage is pulling up to Rubley Square, Frank realizes it’s the same neighborhood that the Governor’s threatening letter came from, the neighborhood he never managed to investigate in person. Frank's distracted and he and Dewees both reach for the door at the same time as the carriage comes to a halt. There's a brief slap fight as they both try to open the door, and Gerard laughs. Frank yanks his hand back and crosses his arms. Gerard looks apologetic. "I'm not laughing because of - " Gerard says and then stops. "You and Dewees are just funny," Gerard adds quickly. "You're very similar." Gerard seems to feel like he's digging himself a hole and so he just stops. Dewees clears his throat to remind them that the door is opened and they've arrived. Frank gets out first, and once Gerard is out, Frank gives Dewees very specific instructions about where to park the carriage and what to do with himself while they're out.

"Whatever, Frankie," Dewees says. "I won't get into any trouble."

"Oh, I'm sure you will," Frank says, "Just because I've forgotten some specific instruction that says, "Don't climb into the pool or something."

Dewees just sighs. "You're having some trouble letting go of your job. Listen, Frankie, you can't be both his servant and his boyfriend," Dewees says. "Or, well, you can, but I'm pretty sure that's in violation of some of the Clan Codes unless you have your sex worker certification."

Frank can feel his expression growing more horrified by the minute. "Just. Stop," Frank says and Dewees bridles.

"Stop what?" Dewees says, like he's giving Frank an opportunity to get the question right.

"Stop talking about my relationship with Gerard." Dewees looks oddly disappointed at Frank's command.

"Your relationship!" Dewees says, but because Frank's given him a direct order, for the moment, he doesn't say anything more. "Listen, Frankie, you go dance with your boyfriend and I'll take care of the carriage and not jump in the pool. Ok?"

Frank watches Dewees disappear with the carriage with an odd sense of disquiet which he's totally willing to blame on nerves. Gerard is waiting further up the path and he grins at Frank when he sees him, and holds out his arm for Frank to take.

Gerard's suit shimmers like a dark bottomed pond. It makes Frank want to dip his hands into the fabric, to see if it feels like water. Gerard's eyes are bright and he's tense in this wonderful way that makes Frank tense too, with anticipation of what's to come. Frank's suit is soft, and light, but he's looking for the first opportunity to take off his jacket. Gerard doesn't usually get this excited about balls; they're more a working event for him more often than not, than a social one, but Frank knows tonight is different because of the way Gerard kept brushing his fingers over Frank's hand in the carriage. Because tonight Gerard is going to the ball with a date.

They're waiting at the entrance to show their invitation, just outside in the courtyard lit up with glowing yellow lights. There are several people Frank doesn't recognize in the line in front of them, and possibly Travie a few positions up, but most of Frank's attention is on Gerard, the way he's almost buzzing next to him.

"Oh, this is going to be wonderful, Frank," Gerard says, and Frank finally gives in and slides his hand across the lapel of Gerard's jacket. Gerard shivers and beams at him, and suddenly they're next in line.

"Good evening," the butler says. "Welcome to the 4th annual werewolf fancy dress ball, Mr. Way and Mr. Iero. It is two days past the quarter moon," he begins with the air of formal repetition, "It is 3:00 AM, Midnighter time, and the west half of the ballroom is situated in Fairy, though through a cooperative agreement all food and drink is safe from usual concerns. The Seelie court is in power until 12 noon, Daylighter time. Have a lovely evening and think you for supporting the Werewolf Prowling Mission."

They step across an invisible magical divide from outside to in, which Frank thinks must be part of the security. The ballroom sparkles and swirls, fancy dress costumes everywhere, people with drinks and laughter, food and low, intimate voices.

"What shall we do first, Frank?" Gerard murmurs low in his ear and Frank shivers.

"You must have business to discuss," Frank says, his voice unsteady.

"Oh, most likely," Gerard says, "but first and foremost, I am here with my date, so you tell me. What do you want?"

Frank wants to stand there, with Gerard's face bent close to him, and disappear into the sound of Gerard's beating heart. "Let's see if we can find Mikey," Frank finally says because his mind is crazy with all of the other possibilities. Gerard leans close and presses a kiss to Frank's cheek, and Frank can tell he's disappointed, but then Gerard takes his hand.

"Find my rogue brother," Gerard says, scanning the room. "I think we can do that."

They find Inspector Toro and Bob Bryar first, at the outer edge of the dance floor.

"Gerard," Inspector Toro says, a little desperately. "Frank. Hi."

"So you decided to come, I'm so glad," Gerard says, clapping Inspector Toro on the arm. "Good evening Bob, how are you?"

"Hoping there won't be any trouble," Bob says. "I'd like to have an evening off from work at least once."

"Trouble," Inspector Toro says, going a little wide-eyed.

"Is everything all right?" Frank asks Inspector Toro, who shakes his head yes, too quickly.

"Culture shock," Bob says.

"Just shock in general," Inspector Toro says, then seems to come back to himself. "And I didn't decide to come to the werewolf ball so much as I agreed to let Bob take me out on - well, to go out for the evening with him, and this - this is where he took me."

"I thought asking you to wear your best suit was enough of a clue," Bob says.

Frank watches the conversation, and watches Gerard, who has the expression on his face that means he's taking things in and cataloging them.

"You're quite safe here," Gerard reassures Inspector Toro. "There are many other Daylighters at an event like this, and I do believe your date gives you a certain measure of extra security." Ray glances up at Bob, whose eyebrows raise, and Ray's cheeks color a little. Frank politely looks away, then back at Gerard, who's smiling gently.

"Excuse us," Gerard says. "We're on a mission to track down my brother."

"Wentz is in the fountain room," Bob says.

Frank's not sure what a fountain room is, but there's a sudden expression on Gerard's face when Bob mentions Pete that makes Frank think maybe they shouldn't go looking for Mikey after all. Frank's saved, though, from having to attempt to redirect Gerard's attention away from whatever it is Wentz is up to by Mikey himself, who appears at Frank's side and hands his brother a drink. "No spices, I checked," Mikey says, more to Frank, though Frank knows Mikey would never give Gerard anything he hasn't fully investigated for allergens. "Shame you can't have the cinnamon cider, it's delicious."

Mikey's wearing a suit coat with tails over his jeans, and a high white collar, shirt untucked. He looks dressier than half the ballroom. Frank will never understand that about Mikey.

"Thanks, Mikey," Gerard says, then as if he can't help himself, "Where's Pete?"

Mikey rolls his eyes. "I'm not here with Pete."

Gerard sighs, and this his eyes narrow. "What's that on your wrist?"

"Probably duck sauce," Mikey says lightly, "Good egg rolls," but Frank can see immediately that Mikey's lying, because there's a spot of blood on his white cuff.

Gerard grabs Mikey's wrist, yanks him close. Mikey tries to struggle away but Gerard has a strong grip. "I thought we discussed this," Gerard says.

"You mean, you lectured me," Mikey says, and struggles away. "I didn't agree to what you said. I don't take your orders," Mikey says.

"What - " Frank says, but Gerard shushes him.

"It's not safe, Mikey," Gerard says.

"You're just saying that because you don't like Pete."

"You know that's not true," Gerard says. "I say these things because I'm trying to watch out for you."

"Well, I don't need it," Mikey says.

"Just -" Gerard says, as Mikey turns, about to walk off. "If you're going to do it, don't do it again for a little while. At least not tonight." Mikey walks off without acknowledging him.

"Do what?" Frank says, feeling completely lost, and feeling several of the things Mikey just said to Gerard are uncomfortably familiar.

Gerard sighs, and takes a sip of the drink Mikey's brought him before he says, "He let Pete drink from him."

"Oh," Frank says, thinking it has to be something worse for Gerard to be this upset. "They've been together a while, though. And it was just from his wrist, you know that's the safe way to do it."

Gerard doesn't answer, just scowls at the floor.

"Come on, let's get something to eat," Frank says. Gerard allows Frank to steer them toward the nearest food table, which is piled with tiers of sweets, all meticulously labeled with ingredients and creature-identification coding. "Here," Frank says, picking up a sugary candy in the shape of a flower. "All sugar, no plant extracts," Frank says.

Instead of holding out his hand for the candy, Gerard opens his mouth. Their eyes meet and Frank feels a shiver go up his spine. Frank places the candy in Gerard's mouth, the tips of fingers brushing Gerard's bottom lip. Gerard takes the candy, sucks for just a moment on Frank's fingers. Gerard's eyes are dark.

There's a nervous laugh behind them, but the sound and the person who made it are lost as the crowd shifts.

Eventually Gerard does need to talk business with a few former clients, and Frank lets himself be swept along with the crowd. There's a suddenly animated conversation just inside the fountain room, and Frank would tune them out just the way he'd been ignoring all the other overlapping conversations all night, except that he hears the word "Trading" and feels suddenly cold.

"It can't have been," a voice is saying. "He'd be dead if it was the Trading."

"People are just saying that because his valet was a vampire. It's not the only way to bring a vampire back from a serious injury," another voice says.

"But I heard from someone who knows Ryan Ross that he said it was the Trading, that his valet drank the blood right from his heart."

"That's not how the Trading works, if it was from his heart, he'd be dead."

"That's what I mean! Why isn't he dead?"

"Why would you believe anything Ryan Ross said?"

"Why would he risk the Trading for his valet? Everyone knows it's illegal."

"Haven't you seen them tonight?"

The crowd shifts and Frank can't hear the rest of the conversation. He's about to go investigate further when Brendon spots him. "Oh, hi, Frank," Brendon says, flashing Frank a slightly lascivious smile. Frank looks to Spencer, who rolls his eyes, and then looks over the clipboard in his hand.

"Good evening, Mr. Iero," Spencer says, looking pointedly at Brendon.

"Mr. Urie, Mr. Smith," Frank says.

"You look delicious in that suit," Brendon says. Spencer clears his throat. "Spencer, would you like a suit like that?"

Spencer clears his throat again and says, crisply, "No, sir."

"Brendon!" Gerard says, finding Frank with suspiciously good timing before Brendon's flirting gets too out of control. "I didn't know you were coming to the ball. Mr. Smith, hello again."

"Good evening, Mr. Way."

"Gerard," he corrects him.

"Yes, sir," Spencer says.

"I'm not technically here for the ball," Brendon says. "I'm on rotation for Order office hours," Brendon says quietly, so just the three of them can hear. "People make appointments for consultations before they order a contract. Usually we do it in public settings like this, where anyone could be, it keeps everything pretty under the radar."

"And you don't worry about people finding out who you are?" Frank asks.

"After the thing with Ryan, I'm about as public a figure as Bob," Brendon says. "Spencer here also provides some excellent cover, as he handles all the appointments and categorizes them in my calendar as Daylighter tax consultations, which does well to bore anyone who might get too curious."

"I am quite facile with tax language at this point," Spencer says.

"I bet that's not all you're facile with," Brendon says.

Frank covers his laugh in a cough, which makes Gerard look at him, concerned.

"I'm fine," Frank says. "Really."

"Are you feeling well?" Spencer asks. "No more allergic reactions?"

"Yes, Spencer told me about that," Brendon says, "Quite odd for a vampire."

Gerard suddenly tenses next to Frank. He feels a pang of guilt talking about this, remembering how worried Gerard has been.

"Seems to have been a fluke," Frank says, hoping that he sounds more convincing than he feels.

"Hmmm," Brendon says thoughtfully, and then he turns to Gerard, "Oh, I've been meaning to send you the note about the vampire zombie. The geis was successfully removed and the neighbors report that the zombie has been acting normally since his return from the Clan Zombie Treatment Center."

"No signs of vampiric tendencies?" Gerard asks. Brendon shakes his head. "Interesting. I assume you've been copied on the Clan's records of the zombie's statement?"

"He has no recollection of the incidents in question, nor of anything that may have prompted his acting in such a way."

"Interesting," Gerard says again.

"Are you going to ask him to dance?" Frank says quietly to Spencer as Brendon and Gerard talk about the zombie. Spencer colors slightly.

"Of course not," Spencer says.

"He would say yes, you know."

"That's what I'm afraid of," Spencer says. Frank laughs. "I'm actually anxious for us to leave, though don't tell Brendon."

"You should tell Brendon," Frank says, and Spencer gives him a look. Frank understands. "Do you just not like the dancing?"

"It's because we're in Fairy, at least on this side of the room," Spencer says. "It makes me feel - well, it's hard to describe, but it makes me feel like I've put something down and now I can't remember where," he says. "I think I see our next appointment," Spencer says to Brendon, as a woman is cautiously approaching.

"Excuse us," Brendon says, "Let's have lunch, next week?"

"Of course," Gerard says.

"See you," Frank says, to Brendon and Spencer. Brendon waggles his eyebrows, and Spencer stamps quite hard on Brendon's foot.

"Do you think I should do something like that? Office hours?" Gerard's saying but Frank only half hears him.

"Oh, hmm, what?" Frank asks. "Sorry," he says. "Just thinking about something Spencer said. Can you tell where the line between the werewolf quarter and Fairy is?"

Gerard stills. "Yes, I can," he says

"I can't see it," Frank says. "I guess it's just one of those things, right? Like an optical illusion."

"Yes," Gerard says, though the word sounds strange. "You don't need to know where it is, though, for an event like this. Since the court has yielded control of the space to the werewolves."

"They can do that?" Frank says.

"They can do lots of things," Gerard says, and it sounds so weirdly cryptic that Frank regrets bringing up Fairy at all. And then Gerard seems to catch himself, and says, "It's a gesture of friendship. The fairies and the werewolves have a complicated history, since they've always overlapped territories, and for a bunch of other reasons historically and politically. But something like this, sharing space, is an important gesture."

Frank clears his throat and Gerard takes his hand. "Your cough," Gerard says. “Is it back?"

"No," Frank says. "Really, I’m fine. I was just trying not to laugh at Brendon and Spencer."

"You’re certain," Gerard says. He’s still holding Frank’s hand, thumb rubbing across the back of Frank’s knuckles. "Nothing else unusual?"

Frank abruptly thinks about his missing scar. "No," he says. "Really, I’ve been feeling mostly fine. Not worse, at least," he says, when Gerard gives him a dubious look. But further protest is interrupted when Inspector Toro comes over and interrupts them.

"He took me to the werewolf ball. A ball. With werewolves," Ray says.

"It’s just that you’ve only seen the factions," Gerard says reassuringly. "The werewolves as a social group are pleasant and easy to get along with."

"But that's what I mean, why are there even factions?" Ray says.

"You have different departments in the police organization," Frank says, since it seems as though Gerard alone is not going to be enough to calm Inspector Toro down.

"Yes, but we don't tear each other's throats out when we disagree."

"Look around," Gerard says. "Everyone is perfectly well behaved. Look, have you met Mr. Pedicone? Frank, why don’t you take Inspector Toro over to meet Mike and I’ll see if I can find Bob."

There's only one werewolf Frank recognizes at the ball, and it's clear a lot of people at the ball know Mike Pedicone. It's one of those things about werewolves; you don't always know who they are for good reason; as far as Midnighters go, they've had it hard across both communities. He shakes both Frank and Gerard’s hands warmly when they come over.

Frank’s about to introduce Ray, who’s shaking slightly, to him, when a hush falls over the room. Frank looks around to see what's causing it, but the disturbance is over at the door and there are too many people in the way for Frank to see whose arrival is causing such a stir. When Frank turns back to Mike, his hackles are up, and in that moment Frank wonders why werewolves aren't more easily visible, because in that moment, Mike looks nothing at all like a Daylighter.

"What - " Frank says, but Mike's charging off through the crowd. A second later, the crowd shifts and Frank sees what the problem is. Gerard gasps and Frank’s surprised Inspector Toro hasn’t collapsed.

The werewolf called Bert has just crashed the Fourth Annual Werewolf Fancy Dress Ball.

"Why isn't anyone screaming?" The werewolf called Bert announces, a moment before Pedicone is in his face, whispering harshly. "No, Mike-Mike, I don't think I will leave," and then the crowd ripples and shifts and he's gone from Frank's sight.

"Frank," Gerard says, suddenly at his side. "I can't believe it, I thought he knew better."

"He's insane," Frank says, awed. The crowd is starting to thin as people exit to the garden, or head off to the sides as the werewolf called Bert advances into the party, Mike Pedicone always a few steps in front of him.

"I came for the party!" The werewolf called Bert says loudly. "It's a werewolf party, and I'm a werewolf."

"You're not welcome here," Mike says.

Mikey is at Gerard's side a moment later. "Shit," he says and Gerard nods. Their fight seems to be temporarily suspended in the wake of the scene unfolding in front of them.

"Where's - " Frank asks.

"Travie took Pete out to the garden," Mikey says. Frank nods. "Forcibly." Frank's glad. He doesn't want to see what would happen if Pete and the werewolf called Bert were more than 30 feet apart.

"Don't make me call security," Mike is saying.

"Security," the werewolf called Bert laughs. "I got in, so they can't be that good. Who are you using, fairies?" There's something ugly in Bert's tone, and Frank feels the crowd get tense. Gerard's hand is on Frank's elbow.

There’s hardly anyone left in the main ballroom now. Mike and the werewolf called Bert are circling each other in the entrance hall, and no one else seems willing to get involved. Someone collides awkwardly with Frank, bouncing off into Gerard.

"Sorry," Ray says, trembling. "Sorry, I just - I - " he's looking at Frank and Gerard but it's clear he can't really spare any of his attention from the werewolf called Bert.

"Could you just keep an eye on him," Bob Bryar says, appearing next Gerard, so Ray doesn't hear. "I was trying to get him out of here," he says, “but it's clear there are some things I need to take care of. Even though I am not working tonight," Bob says.

Ray is positively shaking. He looks at the werewolf called Bert and Mike, then at Bob.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Bob says.

"Wait," Ray says, and he grabs Bob's arm. They both look down at Ray's hand on Bob's arm, and then at each other. "You're not going over there."

"I am," Bob says.

"But it's - it's the werewolf called Bert," he hisses.

"I'll be back in a few minutes," Bob says again, and then strides over.

Ray positively shakes. Frank looks at Gerard, who is watching, rapt.

Mike seems to sense Bob's approach, because before he's even in the clearing made by the crowd, Mike's backing off. He exchanges a brief look with Bob, and then steps into the crowd. The werewolf called Bert is turning wild circles, arms spread, as though taking in the splendor.

"Bob!" he shouts, when his circling stops, and he sways a little. "My dear friend."

Bob doesn't respond.

"Isn't this fun? The fancy dress ball held on Fairy ground. Like we're friends! Like we get along!"

"You were not invited to this event," Bob says.

"I know, that's why it's so fun to be here!" the werewolf called Bert says. "It's not appropriate!"

"You have two choices. You can turn around and walk back out the entrance hall with me, or I can have security remove you from the premises."

"You're not security?" The werewolf called Bert laughs. "You came to dance?"

"Do I need to give you a countdown?" Bob says.

"You're no fun, Bryar," the werewolf called Bert says. "I think I liked you better before."

Gerard gasps. Frank waits for an explanation, but Gerard doesn’t explain.

"I like you even less than I did before," Bob says, "Which should be impossible."

There's a long beat where Frank thinks things are going to get physical, and then the werewolf called Bert laughs, turns on his heel, and marches out the front door, Bob a step behind him.

The entire crowd seems to exhale at once, and then slowly the voices come back, the music starts back up, and people come in from the garden.

Ray is a mess. Mikey is patting him awkwardly on the shoulder.

"Before what?" Frank says, because they're all just staring at each other, but no one answers.

"I thought you said," Ray says, turning to Gerard, "That the werewolf called Bert," his voice goes thin at the name, "Wouldn't dare show his face at an event with Bob Bryar."

"Well apparently," Gerard says, "The werewolf called Bert has quite a lot more nerve than I anticipated."

"Let's get you something to drink," Frank says to Ray. Ray nods.

Frank takes Ray with him to the bar, where they get brandy and when they rejoin Gerard, Mikey has wandered back off again and Gerard and Bob are talking, and Frank hears Bob say that he walked Bert all the way to the Argent Cross Street, which is the edge of the neighborhood. Frank thinks again of the threatening letter, and wishes Schechter had been able to give him a street address. Bob stops talking as soon as he sees Ray and Frank coming over.

"What about the Clan officers?" Gerard says.

"They're not going to take on the werewolf called Bert," Bob says. "Not unless they're going to catch him on some littering violation."

"Did he - " Ray says, finding his voice, "Is he gone?"

"Let's not talk about it," Bob says, and Ray looks instantly relieved.

Ray raises his glass to his lips and takes a long sip. Bob's eyes track all of Ray's movements, and Frank sees something pass between them.

"We were discussing the redistricting in Zone 12," Gerard says, “Before the interruption.” and Ray looks grateful that Gerard isn't saying what they had actually been talking about.

"Making the boundaries for this one is more complicated," Bob says. "But it's zoned for Daylighters."

"It should be an easy enough transition," Ray says, "Daylighter communities with more than one Midnighter border already have Midnighter awareness training, and two Clan Clinics or offices per 25 registered Midnighters."

Gerard says, "The Garden quarter is so popular, I think they're hoping Zone 12 will serve the same purpose and provide some relief from the housing crunch. And they tend to be good places for Daylighters to mix if they're considering becoming a Midnighter, or dating someone."

Ray's eyes flick to Bob's face for a second, then away. It’s so fast that Frank wonders if Bob saw it at all.

"I'd live there," Ray says. And now Bob's attention is entirely on Ray. Frank feels Gerard react to it, as well, brushing his fingers against Frank's. Ray sets his glass down. "Would you like to dance?" Ray asks. Gerard's fingers grab Frank's, and squeeze. Frank squeezes back.

Bob is frozen, looking at Ray so intently Frank thinks that if he were Ray, he would have looked away by now, or possibly run away.

Ray breaks a moment later. "We don't have to, it's fine," he says, about to reach for his glass. "I just -"

"Yes," Bob says, and then holds his hand out for Ray. The moment Ray's hand touches his, Bob's striding onto the dance floor. Gerard's fingers squeeze in Franks hand again.

Frank watches until they're swallowed into the crowd on the floor, Bob arranging Ray's uncertain hands, stepping close, and the gentleness of Bob Bryar with a dance partner catches him by surprise.

"Would you like to dance?" Gerard asks, his rich voice sending Frank trembling.

"Uh," Frank says, momentarily swept up in Gerard's gaze, Gerard's hand in his leading him toward the dance floor. But then he starts to remember why he had been trying to avoid this. "Gerard, if we're seen dancing together - "

"Oh, I think we'll be hard to miss," Gerard says, and it makes Frank's breath catch.

"But everyone knows you," Frank says, a little desperately.

"Yes," Gerard says, "And everyone already knows I've come here with a date. So it should be no surprise to anyone that I'd be seen dancing with him."

"But I used to be your valet," Frank says, in one final, desperate attempt.

Gerard just laughs, and then pulls him close. “I’m so sorry it took me this long to do this,” he whispers against Frank’s ear. They move into the middle of the dance floor, so he can see Ray and Bob again. Frank can feel people looking.

There's a jazzy, warm melody wrapping around the room. Frank can't see where the band is from here. The flower on his lapel is swaying gently, just as Gerard had said it would.

"Sir, this - " Frank says, not even sure where it came from.

"Stop calling me ‘sir,’" Gerard says, still too close in his ear. "You're not my valet, Frankie. You were always more."

"Everyone's already talking, everyone here will know - " Frank says, wishing he'd mentioned the gossip he'd overheard earlier.

"Exactly," Gerard says, taking Frank's hand, pulling him close. There's a murmur that fills the room, then Frank's attention is pulled back as Gerard pulls their bodies together, a hand at the middle of his back.

"Gerard," Frank whispers at what he sees in Gerard's eyes.

"Everyone here will know you're mine," Gerard says, his hands on Frank's hips, their chests together, and Frank lets his eyes fall shut, lets himself be pulled until Gerard's cheek is hot against his. Gerard's hand is on his jaw, his thumb stroking across Frank's cheek. Frank's eyes fall closed. "I don't care what anyone thinks," Gerard says. "They can talk all they want. You're here with me," Gerard says, pressing a quick kiss to Frank's mouth. "That's all that matters. You're here."

They dance for a while, Frank listening to Gerard breathing, listening to their shuffling steps along the floor, the tug of the flower on his lapel as it moves to the music, too. They spin with the crowd around the ballroom, shifting and shuffling, and they pass Pete and Mikey. Gerard stiffens a little, but relaxes as Frank turns him to face in another direction.

"Sorry," Gerard says. "If he would just - "

"I know," Frank says. "Don't think about it now. Think about what a fabulous dancing partner I am."

"You are, it's true," Gerard says. "How did I never know this before?"

"Well, you never asked me to dance before now, did you?" Frank murmurs, and Gerard laughs and leans in.

All of a sudden, there's a scream, and then confused shouting, and then Frank and Gerard both hear, clearly over it all, Mikey shouting Gerard's name.

Gerard pushes his way through the crowd toward where he'd last seen his brother and Pete dancing, Frank just behind him, and everyone parts to reveal that someone has fainted. Not just someone; Pete. And it's not so much fainted as.....collapsed, half-draped over Mikey's bent legs on the floor.

"Someone get Victoria right now," Gerard says, leaning over Pete, pressing his fingers inside his mouth, and Frank's not sure what he's looking for, if Pete's choked on something. "Now!" Gerard shouts.

Frank feels the murmur go up, ripple through the crowd. Pete Wentz. Collapsed in the middle of the dance floor. The murmur builds to confused, panicked voices, until there's a magically magnified voice. It's Bob. "We ask that everyone step outside to the garden until the situation can be assessed. There is no need to panic. But no one may leave until I have given the all clear."

Frank can see over Gerard’s shoulder Pete groggily coming back to consciousness. A moment later and Bob’s standing with them. "Can I have a code?" he says, sounding impatient. Frank thinks he's asking for some sort of key. "Anyone?"

"No code," Pete says, at the same time Mikey says, "Three."

"No code?" Bob says. "Can you tell me in under 15 words why you're on the floor? A reason I'll believe?"

"No?" Pete says, his voice unsteady.

"I'm calling it a Code Three," Bob says, and storms off.

"What - " Frank says and then Bob's voice is shouting, "Emergency Procedure 3-6-7, could I have all Clan Officials clear the floor and could I have an Order presence at each of the directional derivatives. So much for not working tonight," Bob says, to no one in particular.

"I'm fine," Pete says.

Victoria appears, rushing to her knees, blindly reaching for something behind her - her medical bag. "Come on, let's get him on the ground," Victoria says, and Frank dashes forward to help lift Pete off Mikey. Pete's face is slack, his eyes closed. Frank feels a terrifying sense of déjà vu.

"What happened?" Victoria asks Mikey urgently.

"Nothing," Mikey says. "Nothing, I swear, we were dancing and then he was just - falling. I tried to hold him up, but - "

"Brian," Gerard says, standing up and turning his back to the scene, drawing Schechter's name out. A moment later, Schechter appears, right next to Gerard.

"Schechter," Bob’s magically magnified voice rings out again. "Your fucking sorcerer shit is messing with my readings."

"Fuck you, Bryar," Brian says, and immediately goes to Mikey, looking him up and down, and then pushes him toward Gerard. "He's fine," Schechter says, and bends down to where Victoria is running some sort of tube over Pete's prone body.

"We meet again so soon," Victoria says. "No sun traces, no wood, no garlic, I need to get him back to the lab to see if it's a toxin. Can you see anything?"

Schechter examines Pete, then, it's so quick that Frank almost misses it, looks at Gerard and nods.

"Is he going to be ok?" Mikey's thready voice suddenly bursts out.

"Yes," Victoria says. "But, as I don't know what happened, I can't say any more."

Mikey looks relieved, and then he's searching his brother's face, the two of them having a classic Way brother silent conversation. Gerard puts his arm around Mikey and says, “Frank, can you find Dewees and ask him to get the carriage ready for when Bob gives the all clear?"  
Frank makes his way to the north end of the garden where he sees several of the servant staff gathering. "Frank," Gabe says. "What's going on?"

"Hey man," Frank says, and evading the question, "You seen Dewees?"

"Yeah, he's over by the pool," Gabe says.

"Fucker," Frank says, and takes off. Dewees is in fact, by the pool, walking in steady, even steps on the stone edge.

"What are you doing?" Frank demands.

"Not going into the pool," Dewees says.

"Have you been here all night?"

"Nah," Dewees says. "Had Gabe teach me how to do the box step."

"What?" Frank asks. "I mean, whatever. Gerard wants the carriage ready when the all clear's given."

"How's Wentz?" Dewees says.

"Don't know," Frank says.

"I wonder," Dewees says, "Whether I could be prevented from falling into the pool because you've ordered me not to go in."

Frank looks at him for a minute and is about to say something scathing when he actually considers the idea for a minute. "Nah," he says, "I don't think zombie magic has any power over the laws of physics. If you fall, you're going in. Though I guess you could ask Schechter about it."

"I'm not asking that sorcerer anything," Dewees says, looking suddenly afraid.

"It's ok, man, it's fine, I won't make you ask. You just seem like you wanted to know."

"I don't desire anything but clarity," Dewees says airily, and then hops down from the pool edge and heads toward the carriage.  
When Frank comes back into the ballroom, after some negotiating with guards at the entrance, Pete is sitting up, drinking water from a cup Victoria is pressing to his mouth.

"Can I blame you for this?" Bob says, coming over to Schechter.

"No," Schechter says.

"Too bad," Bob says. "It'd be more convincing than telling everyone Pete Wentz just fainted." He looks to Victoria. "There's nothing else I could say?"

Victoria shakes her head.

"You ok?" Bob asks Pete. "I’m serious. We have 9 local Order agents in the area, and I'd guess there are at least 16 Clan officials here incase you wanted to do anything."

"Anything like what?" Pete says, twisting his face away from the cup, which Victoria is still trying to press to his mouth.

"Anything like figuring out why you just collapsed in public in the middle of a fancy dress ball? Or, I don't know, would you prefer to hold a news conference?" Bob sounds pissy, and tired. “Consider whether or not it has anything to do with the evening’s other disturbance?”

"I'm fine," Pete says. “And I highly doubt it has anything to do with the werewolf called Bert. I just got overtired.” Bob sighs loudly.

"Where is he?" Patrick comes rushing over. "They said I couldn't see him and I told them there was nothing about Pete I couldn't see and - " Patrick stops when he sees Pete on the floor.

"What the fuck," Patrick says, like Pete's messing with him.

"I'm fine, 'Trick," Pete says.

"Oh, yeah, because Mikey looks like he's the picture of calm. You have never passed out," Patrick says. "Not even that time you hung upside-down for 12 hours and then tried to stand up right away."

"I didn't pass out," Pete says. Victoria coughs. "Ok, fine, I don't know what happened."

"Fucking - whatever, Pete," Patrick says, and tries to stalk off but then comes back a moment later and just glares at Pete.

"You have a list of everyone in attendance?" Gerard says. "Staff, guests, everyone?"

Bob nods. "Good," Gerard says. "I'll be in touch tomorrow."

"It's not a case," Pete murmurs.

"With you, it is," Gerard says. "Mikey, say goodnight."

Mikey makes a sour face at his brother's petulant order, but then he kneels down by Pete and Gerard's concession is to look away. Mikey presses a brief kiss to Pete's lips and then stands up.

Several people try to ask them what's happening as they leave, but Schechter appears to be monitoring their exit and shrouds them in a fog that lets them pass through the crowds, through the front door, and all the way to the carriage, obscured. Gerard pushes Mikey in first, then Frank, and then gives Dewees the order to take them back to the Mansion.


	2. Part 2

> **Entry in Private House Records, Journal of Magical-Medical Occurrences**
> 
> I would rather not reflect on the state of Gerard after he attempted - and succeeded - in the Trading, but for history's sake23, I will record it thusly:
> 
> Gerard inflicted a knife wound just above his heart. This alone should have killed him, whether at that moment or within the hour. Frank, the vampire in receipt of the blood, consumed what must have been at least two pints of blood from direct feeding.
> 
> Frank slept in his coffin for 14 hours. Gerard, after first magical and then my admittedly amateur medical attention, was fully conscious after an hour, and was mobile, if weak, an hour after that. At the time, I was suffering from an arrow wound to my leg and the severity of the situation did not fully occur to me until later, at which point Gerard was awake and asking for water to be heated so he could wash up. I assumed my assessment of the seriousness of his injury must have been incorrect. However, after meditating on the events the next day, the reality of the situation was clearer. Gerard not only attempted the Trading, but both he and Frank survived.24
> 
>   
> 23God forbid anyone ever attempt such a ridiculous thing again.  
> 24 I don't enjoy admitting that exactly how this came to be remains a mystery to me.  
>   
> 

Mikey rounds on Gerard as soon as they’re back inside the Mansion. "What do you know about Pete that you're not telling me?" Mikey demands. "What is it? Is he sick? Is he dying or something? Is that why you don't want me to get too close?"

Frank freezes. The idea of Pete being sick, Pete dying hits too close to home. Frank thinks uncomfortably about the way Pete had passed out, wondered if that's what he had looked like the first time.

"No," Gerard says. "Pete's fine. But I want to keep him that way." Mikey's clearly had enough and Frank doesn't blame him.

"It’s not like I am going to just do what you say," Mikey says. "You should know better than that."

"I do know better," Gerard says and Mikey storms off upstairs.

Frank wants to bring up Alicia and point out that maybe Gerard should be more worried about her messing with Mikey’s life, but a sharp knock on the door stops him. Dewees calls in a nervous voice for Gerard.

"Sir," he says, the door ajar behind him. "I am not sure I should let the guests at the door inside."

"Why?" Gerard says, coming over. "Who are they?"

"Clan Code Keepers." Dewees says. "They say they're here to arrest you."

"What?" Frank says.

"I'll handle this," Schechter says, rushing into the hall. Dewees skitters away as though Schechter has come at him with a torch. Schechter flings the door open wide. There are four uniformed Clan officers outside. "State your business," Schechter says, and Frank feels pleased that a tremor travels through all four officers, and the one in front actually takes a step back.

"We are here to arrest Gerard Way for attempting the Trading."

"Who issued these charges?" Schechter demands.

"They were reported anonymously to the Clan Office."

"You mean someone reported the gossip at the ball this evening.” Frank is alarmed to realize there was enough gossip that Schechter heard about it. He’d only heard that one moment, and he’s mad at himself for not paying closer attention. “You sure move fast for hearsay."

Mikey comes thundering down the stairs at that moment. "What the hell?" he asks. "You leave my brother alone."

"There hasn't been a reported attempt of the Trading in several years. It's a very serious crime," the Clan Code Keeper in the front says.

"No one attempted the Trading," Schechter says firmly. Frank thinks the house shudders a little.

Frank is trying to catch Gerard's eyes, but he's looking somewhere out the door, over Schechter's broad shoulders, over the guards.

"Brian," Gerard says, "It's fine, they can take me in."

"No!" Frank exclaims.

"No, absolutely not," Mikey says.

"You did nothing wrong," Schechter insists.

"I know," Gerard says calmly. "And only once they investigate will they be able to clear me of the charges."

The officers looked relieved that they are not going to have to fight the sorcerer, Frank, and Mikey at the same time.

"I take it Pete doesn't know about this," Mikey says.

"Mr. Wentz is still at the Clan Clinic," an officer at the back says.

"I thought as much," Mikey says sourly.

"Fine, take Gerard in, but don't think for a second that he'll be out of my sight," Schechter says with finality.

"Let me get my bag," Gerard says. "I take it I'm permitted to bring reading material?"

Frank doesn’t think he’s permitted to do any such thing, but none of the Code Keepers argue.

"They can't - " Frank says, finding his voice. "They can't -"

"It's ok, Frankie, everything's going to be fine." Gerard leans in, appearing to press a kiss to Frank's cheek, but once his face is hidden from the officers, he whispers in Frank's ear, "Call Brendon once I've left. He'll know what to do." The flower on Frank’s jacket sways gently as Gerard pulls away.

"Gee - "

Gerard leans in and does the same to Mikey, hugging his brother and whispering something that Frank can't hear, but that makes Mikey's mouth go pursed.

"It'll be fine, I promise," Gerard says to both of them. Frank watches, stunned, as Gerard turns to the officers.

"And what am I supposed to do about Frank?" Schechter says, his voice low. Frank wants to ask what he means, but the look that's passing between Gerard and Schechter frightens him.

"Just make sure he's ok," Gerard says, and turns and walks out as two Clan officers step in to flank him. Frank runs and then stops at the door, watching as they help Gerard into the carriage and then lock the doors with a chain on the outside.

"Inside," Schechter says sternly. "It's going to be dawn soon." Frank can't make his body work. "Frank," Schechter says, more gently, and then he has a hand on Frank's shoulder, pushing him around. Mikey slips past and out the door. "Mikey, where are you going?" Schechter shouts.

"I have to talk to Pete," Mikey shouts, already disappearing down the path in the dust of the carriage.

"Why did you ask Gerard what you were supposed to do about me?" Frank asks Schechter when he finally finds his voice.

"Because he knows what a handful you are," Schechter says, and Frank knows there's something Schechter's not telling him, but he's too tired, too panicked to push.

Frank is writing out a note to Brendon when Schechter appears at his shoulder, sets his hand on the note and says, "Let me get him, it'll be faster." Frank nods. "Dewees, get Frank something to eat," Schechter says.

Dewees answers a tremulous, out of sight, "Yes, sir" and Schechter shakes his head.

"I want you to stay here and tell Greta and Patrick what's happening when they get back, and wait to see if you hear anything from Mikey."

"Ok," Frank says, feeling slow and numb.

"Frank," Schechter says, "This is Gerard. He'll be fine."

"But he got arrested," Frank says, and realizes how thin and pathetic his voice sounds.

"It's not the first time Gerard's been arrested," Schechter says dismissively. Frank's mouth drops open in shock. "Someday you're going to find the time to read Gerard's case logs from before you started. I'll be back with Brendon," Schechter says, and then he's gone.

Frank has never really found the time to read Gerard’s old case reports, and it seems - well, it seems like prying to read about cases that Gerard has done before Frank knew him, especially since Gerard wrote them. He decides he'll ask Gerard, as soon as he is back to tell him about the other times he’s been arrested. Frank knows it will make this time seem less dire. Frank pictures it, Gerard in his favorite chair, Frank on the floor, leaning against his knees. Frank already misses him so much already he has no idea how he’s going to deal with Gerard being in prison.

And he can’t help thinking that it’s his fault. Gerard said, all along, ‘if people got suspicious,’ ‘if Clan Officials got suspicious.’ Frank has just pushed and pushed and it seemed only fair when Gerard finally gave in on something, but maybe Gerard knew what would happen along, and he’d still given in for Frank.

When Schechter returns, it isn't with Brendon alone, but with Spencer, Ryan Ross, and Jon Walker.

"What?" Frank asks, watching as all of them follow Schechter in. Dewees arrives to take all of their coats the moment that Schechter goes into the sitting room. Brendon and Ryan appear so deep in a low-voiced argument that they do not seem to have noticed they've moved to another house, and Dewees has to help Spencer tug Brendon's coat off his shoulders.

"Are you ok, Frank?" Spencer asks, coming right over to him after Brendon’s coat has been successfully removed.

"Yeah," Frank says absently. “What's going on with Brendon and Ryan?"

Spencer takes a fortifying breath. "Brendon thinks Ryan's the one who started the gossip about the Trading. We can't really be sure. But either way, let Brendon handle it, honestly, if anyone knows how to put Ryan back in line, it's Brendon." Frank can't actually argue with that, because as he watches, there's a complicated negotiation of body language happening, where Brendon is slowly and unrelentingly towering over Ryan, whose valiant attempts at standing up straight are no match.

"I'm telling you, it wasn't me," Ryan says, voice breaking from the whispering into a real shout. Brendon takes a step forward.

"It was either you or Jon," Brendon says, "And if it was Jon, he wouldn't be lying about it."

"It's true," Jon says, "When I do something like this, I tell you. At least, most of the time. When it comes up." Brendon looks at Jon, a rush of frustration in his face which he masters a moment later.

"I heard people saying, at the ball, that they heard from Ryan - " Frank starts, to Spencer.

"It's possible," Spencer says, "But I don't really see what Ryan would get out of it. It only makes him look bad, since he's the one who shot you in the first place."

"What about someone from the Order?" Ryan asks.

"How dare you," Brendon says immediately.

"Or," Ryan says, backing away from that line of accusation, "What about any of the Clan officers who came to get Pete?"

"He has a fair point," Schechter says, appearing at the door. "As much as I hate to agree with him," he says, turning a scathing look on Ryan, who wilts a little. "Could I please speak to Brendon alone?" Schechter says. "Mr. Smith, feel free to re-task Mr. Dewees to assist you with anything you might need to make everyone comfortable."

"Yes, sir," Spencer says. Frank's about to follow him when Schechter says, "In here, Frank." Spencer gives Frank a look that shows he's fine, and reminds Frank that he's not a valet anymore, all at the same time.

Frank follows Brendon, who's still glaring at Ryan as though daring him to put a toe out of line. Jon is looking bored, which Frank thinks can’t be good.

Schechter gestures for both Brendon and Frank to have a seat. Then he waves, setting what Frank can only imagine is some sort of magical lock on the door.

Brendon starts, "You know the first question I'm going to have to ask."

"Ask it," Schechter says.

"Was it the Trading?”

Frank's eyes dart to Schechter, then to Brendon, then to the floor.

"Yes," Schechter says after a considerable pause.

Brendon lets out a shaky breath. "How did he survive?"

"I don't know," Schechter says. "Frank - "

"I don’t know, either," Frank breathes out. "That night, at the greenhouse. I told him he was ridiculous for using the Trading on - on me." Frank says.

"Do you remember any of it?" Brendon asks.

"I remember - " Frank says. He's tried not to think about it. It’s too much. Too close to being out of control, too close to hurting Gerard. "I remember the blood being too fresh. Too strong," Frank says.

They're all quiet.

"I treated Gerard after," Schechter says. "The wound was in the right place. Gerard's a fast healer and I'm a good sorcerer, but I'm still not sure how it didn't kill him."

"Can we - " Frank says, swallowing hard. "Can we talk about what we're going to do?"

"They don't have any evidence," Schechter says.

"They're just responding to the rumor," Brendon says, "which in theory would be the appropriate avenue for an investigation, but they wouldn't have just arrested a suspect if it wasn't Gerard, if there wasn't someone with some agenda behind it."

"That's what concerns me the most," Schechter says. "There is no one I'm watching who would go after Gerard through the Clan Office."

"In the Clan office, though, that is unsettling," Brendon says.

There's a knock on the door.

"What?" Schechter says.

"Announcing Mr. Wentz, Ms. Salpeter, Mr. Stump, and Mr. Way," Dewees shouts as though across a cavern.

"Let Pete in," Schechter says, "And Greta. Tell Mikey I'll speak with him in a moment, but I don't want him wrapped up in this, I need at least one Way brother to maintain plausible deniability."

"Yes, sir," Dewees says tremulously.

A moment later, Schechter releases the door lock and Greta and Pete come in. Schechter promptly closes the door behind them. "Lock it," he says to Greta. She looks at him for a moment, to see if he really means it, then she does. "Good," Schechter says, looking. "More consistency with the coverage next time," he says, "You'll avoid weak spots."

"There weren’t any weak spots,” Greta says.

"At the corners,” Schechter says and before she can argue, he turns to Pete, "I'm assuming you're not behind this."

Pete laughs, though it sounds a little scary. "I am not the monarch of the Clan Code," Pete says. "It's self-enforcing. But no, I had nothing to do with this, and if I had known anything about it, I would have been sure to handle it much differently." He turns to Brendon. "You think it was Ryan?"

Brendon sighs. "I really don't know. I thought we'd made some progress, and his denial seems genuine, but you know how it is with Ryan, if he thinks he shouldn't be at fault, he acts like that means he’s blameless."

"I'll talk to him later," Pete says.

"I'm sure that'll be fun," Brendon says, sounding tired.

"Can you do anything?" Frank says. "About getting Gerard out?"

"Yes," Pete says. "I can petition to supervise the investigation, and call for an internal review," he says. "But I can't stop it now that it's started. They're going to have trouble proving anything, since both parties are alive," Pete says. "That's not characteristic of the Trading in any way.

"You know it's true, though," Frank says. The room goes quiet. "You've known."

"Yeah," Pete says. “I saw it. You were gone, Frank.”

Pete’s expression is full of empathy, and Frank has to look away. He knows. As much as he lets himself think about it, that is. But he knows why it was the Trading, and not just fresh blood rescue measures. He had been that close to certain death.

"Frank," Schechter says, "Why don't you go check on Mikey and get something to eat, and then come back here."

"Yeah," Frank says. He knows he’s being dismissed, but he's grateful for the reprieve.

Greta lets him out of the locked door. Frank goes upstairs looking for Mikey. He's sitting on the edge of his bed with Alicia's spirit board in his lap, idly moving the indicator across the board.

"Hey," Frank says.

"Hey," Mikey says, and shuffles over on the bed so Frank can sit down next to him.

"So, Pete looks better," Frank says.

"Yeah," Mikey says. "No one knows what it was. Victoria thought it might be exhaustion, you know how he never knows his own limits."

"Yeah," Frank says.

"I'm glad, you know," Mikey says.

"Glad?" Frank asks. He's trying to figure out why Mikey would be glad that Pete has a reputation that lets people believe he'd work himself to collapse.

"That Gerard saved you," Mikey says.

Frank can't find the words. He just closes his eyes and breathes. "Thanks," he says.

"Want to talk to my grandmother?" Mikey says, pushing the spirit board between them and gesturing for Frank to put his hands on the pointer.

"No," Schechter's disembodied voice shouts into the room. The spirit board trembles. Mikey falls back on the bed, laughing.

Frank starts to feel better after that. Knowing that Mikey isn't that worried reassures him. He wanders down to the kitchen, where Dewees gets him a bag of blood and then goes back to sweeping. Frank drinks, and thinks about dancing with Gerard, Gerard's breath warm on his cheek.

"Thanks," Frank says, leaving the bag for Dewees to put in the bio-recycling. "Do you know where Spencer is?"

"Second floor patio," Dewees says, still sweeping. "Is it left to right, or right to left?" he says, pausing with the broom.

"Either is fine, man," Frank says, laughing. He's about to head up the stairs to see Spencer when he starts coughing. He tries to clear his throat, feels his eyes water, grips the railing, coughs more and more. He panics then, when he can't make it stop. He tries to call out for someone, but he can't manage anything through the coughing, just choking sounds, and then his grip's slipping on the stairs, and he feels himself overbalance, and he's falling backwards, all the way down.  
When he wakes up, he's freezing.

"Don't open your eyes," Victoria says. "Hang on." She has a flashlight ready, peeks under Frank's lids. "Ok, go ahead," she says.

"What the fuck," Frank says. He understands why he's cold when he sees there's a bag of ice on his chest, one under his neck.

"He's awake," Victoria says. Frank blinks around. He's on the floor in the hall, the stairs where he fell looming up in front of him.

Schechter comes over, places a hand briefly on Frank's forehead.

"How do you feel?"

"Like it's winter," he says.

"Stop complaining, the ice is keeping the swelling down."

"Swelling," Frank says.

"In your lungs," Schechter says, sounding at least a little uncomfortable.

"I don't - " Frank tries to sit up. His lungs. Any hope he had that Victoria’s theory that it was some lasting damage from the arrow completely evaporates. He’s heard people talk about his lungs in that tone before. He knows what it means. Before he was turned, swelling in his lungs had almost killed him.

"You'll be fine soon." Schechter says. Frank knows the empty reassurances go hand in hand with this kind of news. "I sent everyone else home, except for Pete, who is in my lab, waiting to be tested."

"Tested for what?" Frank asks.

"For whatever can make vampires collapse like they have Daylighter illnesses," Victoria says.

"So everyone - "

"Yes, everyone saw you fall down the stairs. I'm sorry, Frank," Schechter says, not sounding sorry at all, "I was more concerned with keeping you safe than I was with your pride."

"Don't tell Gerard," Frank says weakly.

"Too late," Schechter says. “I’ve already sent a message along to the Clan Detainment Office.”

Prison. Frank remembers too vividly why Gerard isn't here, and he sits up, dislodging the ice, but he immediately starts to cough.

"Stay still," Victoria says, and coaxes Frank back down.

"I’m going to get you some blood," Schechter says, stalking off. Frank closes his eyes. When he opens them again, he’s been moved to Schechter’s office, where someone has relocated a couch and draped Frank across it while he was out.

"Drink this,” Schechter says, when he sees Frank’s eyes are open. Schechter removes the ice and helps Frank to sit. Frank isn’t sure he can find his voice, so he does as Schechter says.

"It's different blood," Frank says, when he's half-finished the bag, and Schechter stops writing but doesn't look up at Frank. "It's a different cocktail."

"Yes," Schechter says, his eyes still on his paper.

The rest of the thought forms in Frank's mind as soon as Schechter speaks. "It's missing Gerard's blood. That's why you asked him what you were supposed to do. You've been mixing in his blood and now you can't get it while he's locked away."

Schechter gets up from the table, folds his paper in four folds, and then slips it inside the larger book it's sitting on and closes the book.

"It was almost all Gerard's blood," Schechter says after a few moments of closing books on his desk.

"That's impossible," Frank says. "He couldn't give me that much blood. He'd be suffering from Westenra Syndrome."

"Westenra Syndrome is when someone has the compulsive delusion that they can sustain a vampire all on their own," Schechter says, "Which is not what's happening. Gerard is being perfectly reasonable about it."

"But I can't take that much blood from him. How many pints a day is he giving? Has he been sick and you haven't told me?"

"Frank," Schechter says, short and stern, and Frank realizes the room has started to spin, and it must show on his face. "Drink the rest of that and lie back down. I'll be able to get Gerard's blood in a few days."

"But why is there such a difference," Frank asks, drinking the rest of the blood.

"I don't know," Schechter says, and it's such a blatant lie that Frank just lies back down and lets Schechter get away with it.  
Frank doesn't need Schechter to tell him that there are only a few possible reasons that Gerard's blood would make a difference. The one Frank believes first is that it's the same reason he's getting sick - something went wrong with the Trading and he never healed properly. So Gerard's blood is this sort of stop-gap, keeping him from getting worse. But something else bothers him about it, the explanation not quite fitting. Surely at this point Schechter could just explain. He keeps going back to the amount of blood Gerard's giving him, and how he had no idea. He hasn't been too sick to notice if Gerard was weaker, or ill. He knows all the signs of someone giving too much blood; he learned them at the clinic when he was turned, incase he ever chose to feed consensually on a person, but it's also instinct. Frank knows how blood is supposed to work, how it courses through a person, how it's theirs, how it is their life, feeding them, replenishing itself a little at a time. And Gerard has seemed fine.

He talks to Dewees about it later that night.

"You think that's why he's pushing me away?"

"Correct me if I'm wrong," Dewees says, "Except I know I'm not in this case. But you're the one who's pushing him away because you're sick."

"He's the one who said - " Frank says, but stops, when Dewees just stares at him. "But this not talking about cases, and not letting people know....things. Do you think he doesn't want me to know that he's sick?"

"No," Dewees says. "You'd know if he was sick."

"So how can he be giving me so much blood? If his is the only blood that doesn't make me sick - It's not normal," he says, but then he stops.

"Frank," Dewees says. "You ok?"

"Yeah," Frank says. "Yeah, I'm just tired. I'm gonna go lie down." He manages to shake off Dewees, as he heads up to the bedroom, to his coffin, and then he's alone with the thought that's shouting, too loud, like a siren in his head.

It's not normal. It's not normal for a Daylighter. Which would mean the answer is the simplest thing possible: Gerard is not a Daylighter.

Frank does lie down, not because he's not feeling well, but because his head is spinning. It's such a simple explanation and it makes everything make so much sense. His secretiveness, his caution, his avoidance. The secret he's been keeping. Maybe that's why he doesn't want Frank asking too much about the Trading, because the Trading is about blood, and questions about blood leads to his secret.

Frank's mind chases through all the things Gerard could be: a werewolf, no, he would have known by now. A skinwalker? Some kind of elf? Nothing seems right. But it's ok, whatever it is. Frank's going to tell Gerard - and he won't tell anyone else he knows, since there has to be a reason Gerard wants it secret, but if he just asks, just asks the right way, then Gerard can tell him. And then maybe Frank can tell him how scared he is that he's only going to keep getting sicker, and not get better, not even plateau out into something manageable.

Once Gerard is out of prison, he'll tell him, and it'll be better. It'll be easier now he knows, and he can tell Gerard. It already makes him feel better.

Maybe once he’s talked to Gerard, they’ll be able to figure out who else wants to know so badly that they’re threatening the Governor. Frank wants to get up and go out and find a copy of the Clan Code Creature Definition and Categorization Project, but he knows it's better to wait to hear it from Gerard.  
Like it's a sign, Schechter tells him at breakfast the next day that Gerard's been granted visitation hours.

"After 18 hours of detainment, a suspect can request their first of three visitors for the next twenty-four hours. Guess who Gerard requested first?"

Frank is looking at Mikey, who shakes his head. "Me?" Frank asks.

Schechter shakes his head, disgusted, impatient. "Yes, you, asshole, now come on."

"He doesn't need to waste a visit on me, I'm fine, and he needs to talk to - " Frank is trying hard not to voice the fear that he’s not well enough to go out at all, regardless of Gerard’s request.

"Frank," Schechter says, and Frank quiets. "Come on, into the carriage. And keep the ice on you for the ride."

The Clan Detainment Office is a plain brick building set behind a copse of trees. It doesn't look as dire or as grim as Frank expects it to. It doesn't look like a prison. Even on the inside, even though Frank has to be scanned by security and has to go in alone, leaving Schechter outside like he's guarding the guards.

He's escorted down a hall, then another, then another. He manages not to cough at all the whole time. Finally, he’s led to a door, which the guard unlocks. Gerard's sitting at a bare metal desk. There's a bed in the room, a lamp. Gerard's travel bag. There are no bars, but Gerard does not belong here.

He stands up as soon as Frank's in the room. Frank closes the door behind him, waits for someone to object. "They're just... going to let me be in here?"

"I'm here as a courtesy, Frank, they all know that," Gerard says. "I could break out of here in five minutes if I wanted to."

"I would have said three," Frank says.

"Oh, Frankie," Gerard says, and then Gerard is hugging him. Frank doesn't realize how wrong he's felt until he feels right again, until Gerard has his arms around him. “Are you ok?"

"I'm fine," Frank says quickly.

"Tell me what happened with the coughing," Gerard says, when he realizes Frank's going to try to avoid it.

"It was -" he wants to tell Gerard how badly it scared him, how much it felt like before. "It was sudden this time," Frank says. “I was coughing, then I was just – out. What are you reading?" He asks, picking up the book on Gerard’s desk.

"History of lobelia usage in rituals," Gerard says. "Frank," he says when Frank starts flipping through the pages of the book. "Frank, please."

"You wouldn't be in here if it wasn't for me," Frank says in a rush. He hadn't even meant to say it. His hands are clenched at his sides. Gerard walks over to him, hands on Frank's arms.

"Frankie, I'd spend the rest of my life here if it meant you'd be safe."

"Gee," Frank breathes, and then all of Frank's anger, his fear fades as Gerard leans in and kisses him. It's a gentle, lingering kiss, and when Gerard pulls back, Frank realizes his hands are stroking Gerard's face.

"I need you to stay out of trouble," Gerard says. Frank laughs.

"You're the only one who gets me into trouble," Frank says. Gerard's smile is warm, and there's a glint in his eyes that makes Frank want to drag them both to the bed, no matter how weak he feels.

"Take care of the greenhouse for me," Gerard says.

Frank pulls back, shocked. "You won't be gone that long," Frank says.

"The greenhouse is the one thing that can't wait," Gerard says seriously, "It needs attention every day. I’ve asked Brian, but if you wanted – I keep a book on the top shelf over the stones for the lily beds."

"Oh," Frank says. "But you won't be there and so I thought I shouldn’t - "

"Frank," Gerard says. "You can go into the greenhouse anytime you want. Just tell Brian so you don’t get stuck. I should be here a few more days, that’s it.”

"Pete's pissed," Frank says.

"So he thinks it's someone inside, too?" Gerard's voice is low, right next to Frank's ear. Frank nods. "This time is useful, Frank," Gerard says, still so quietly. "There's something to be said for having the time to investigate your accusers."

Frank breaks into a grin, and he immediately feels guilty for underestimating Gerard. Gerard touches his fingers briefly to the corner of Frank's mouth and Frank's smile softens. "You'll be ok," Gerard says. "This will be over soon."  
Frank's reading over page 67 of the Mindless Act, Mutual Non-Aggression Agreements and How They Relate to Each Hour of the Day because he's run out of things to do to keep himself busy.

"It's good, huh?" Pete says, coming over to look over Frank's shoulder. Pete's visiting Mikey but had to come downstairs for his ice regimen as prescribed by Victoria. He has a pack of ice in his hand, and he's not applying it to his chest. Frank weighs the pros and cons of advising Pete on the benefits of the ice, or at least keeping up with Victoria and Schechter's instructions, but Pete seems to anticipate this and looks at the ice pack in his hand, shrugs, and tucks it into his shirt.

"It's incredible," Frank says. "How did you even think of this stuff?"

"Oh, most of this isn't me," Pete says. "This is the Governor's opus. I just filled in a few holes, offered some perspective on Midnighter reaction to certain wording, that sort of thing. She even did the acronym herself."

"You have some sort of secret talent with acronyms?"

"I did come up with Clandestine."

"Clandestine isn't an acronym," Frank says, and realizes his mistake as soon as Pete looks at him for a long moment. "Ok, I didn't know it was an acronym," Frank says.

Pete shrugs it off. "That's the true test of success for an acronym, really, when people stop thinking about what all the letters spell out."

"And what.....do they spell out?" Frank asks.

That's clearly the right question because Pete's face breaks out in a huge grin. "Community Legal Advisory for Nocturnal-Diurnal Equality in Supernatural, Thaumaturgical, Illusory and Necromantic Entities," Pete says with a flourish.

"Wow," Frank says, already forgetting what half the letters stand for. "That's impressive."

"So what's up with Patrick?" Pete says, taking control of the conversation like he’s grabbing the wheel of a carriage from the passenger seat.

"He's doing a few more tests with Schechter," Frank says. "Something to do with bricks today, or some other stonework."

"Tests?" Pete says. "Is he taking the Landscaper's Exam again, because he told me it was a joke that one time. And besides, since when is your sorcerer a landscaping expert?"

Frank thinks that Pete has to be joking - not about the Landscaper exam, because that seems like it could be true, but about not knowing what the tests are about.

"He hasn't told you," Frank says. "Why he's working with Schechter." Frank chooses his words carefully, trying not to give anything away, because if Patrick hasn't told Pete directly, Frank's certainly not going to.

"Haven't heard from him in a while," Pete says dismissively.

"You should talk to Schechter about the exact details of the arrangement," Frank says. Pete scowls at him, because he knows Frank's just put on his valet face.

"I'm not talking to your sorcerer," Pete says. "I still remember what happened that time he caught me climbing out of Mikey's window. Do you know where Mikey is?" Pete says.

Frank does. Mikey's with Alicia.

"No," Frank says. "I haven't seen him since yesterday."  
Frank is allowed to go back and visit Gerard the next night, though only for half an hour, since he's in a meeting-with-law-representative cycle.

"Tell me how you're feeling," is the first thing Gerard says, as soon as Frank's closed the doors.

"Fine," he says, though the rasp in his throat gives him away. He's been late coming inside because he had a coughing fit under the oak tree and he didn't want to chance Gerard hearing it from the guard's hall.

"Frank," Gerard says. "It's not like Brian doesn't give me a report."

"Have you heard anything from the Governor?" Frank says instead.

"A few things," Gerard says, reluctantly accepting Frank's redirection. "She received another threat. I think you were right in following the lead about the neighborhood. If the threats are coming from the werewolf called Bert, one would think he would just deliver them himself, not use a courier, so there's something more complicated going on. Though you're sick, Frank, you shouldn't take up a case," Gerard says, because he can obviously see the intention on Frank's face.

"I'm fine," Frank says again.

"If you go look into anything, promise me you won't go alone. Take Jamia," Gerard says.  
Frank takes Gerard's suggestion to heart and goes to see Jamia that night.

"Let's break into the werewolf called Bert's apartment," Frank says when Jamia lets him in.

"Let's sit you down on the couch, tuck a blanket up under your chin and make you some tea," Jamia says. "You sound terrible."

"I'm fine," Frank says, and Jamia just pulls him into a hug.

"Oh, Frankie," she says. "Did you get to see Gerard today? Do you know when they're letting him go?"

"He thinks it will be soon," Frank says, though he can't help how despondent he sounds, and what's worse, he starts to cough. Jamia gets him a glass of water.

"I'm not committing larceny just to make you feel better," she says, though she sounds like she still might be considering it.

"It's not larceny if we just look around," Frank offers. "You didn't have a problem breaking into the Governor's office."

"That's different," Jamia says. "So did you come here just to recruit me into a life of crime, or did you want to talk?"

Frank crosses his arms, and Jamia sits down next to him on the couch, and does, in fact, start tucking him under a blanket, and he lets her, because he's too exhausted to try and fight her.

There's nothing he can tell Jamia that won't get them too close to talking about Gerard's secret, he just has to be patient for the moment when he can finally ask Gerard about it. He says, "I'm sorry I'm such an idiot when I'm sick."

Jamia leans her head on his shoulder. "Frank, I made peace with your idiocy long ago," she says. "If you're still awake in twenty minutes, I'll consider an evening of breaking and entering."

He knows it's a raw deal, though, because he's already starting to drift off.

"That's what I thought," Jamia says, and she closes her eyes, too.  
Schechter gets a call from the Clan Detainment Office early next evening, and then stands outside the room where Frank's filing.

"What?" Frank says, finally turning when Schechter just stands there are stares at him.

"You coming?" Schechter says.

Realization dawns on Frank. "He's out?"

"He will be, as soon as we pick him up. Come on, I could have been there and back by now if Gerard hadn't specifically asked me to use the carriage so as not to make a scene. Come on, get in the carriage.”

There's frost on the grass, Frank can feel his feet slipping on it as he waits outside the prison. Gerard comes out behind Schechter after a few tense minutes where Frank thinks they won't let him out at all.

"Gerard, can I talk to you for a minute?" Frank says, as soon as he sees him.

Schechter just keeps walking to the carriage, like he wants to avoid some tearful reunion, but that's not why Frank's asking.

Gerard looks concerned, and he looks even more concerned when Frank coughs a little.

"Frank?" Gerard says. He sets a hand on Frank's shoulder and Frank tries to wait out the need to cough, and fails.

Frank presses his hand against his chest hard, trying to stop his lungs from rebelling. The cold air should be better for him, keep his body temperature lower. Gerard's cheeks are pink from the chill. "I know," Frank says.

Gerard stills. "You know what?" Gerard says.

"I know you've been giving me your blood," Frank says. "I know Schechter thinks it will make me better, that it will do something more than what's already in the mix Victoria's given me."

Frank waits, and Gerard nods. "Schechter thought it would," Gerard says. "And I wasn't going to say no."

"But it means your blood is something different, doesn't it?" Frank asks. "It means you're not a Daylighter."

Gerard's expression is unreadable. He remains perfectly silent except for the measured, slow exhalations and inhalations, his breath visible in the air.

"It's ok," Frank says. "Whatever it is, you can tell me."

"I can't," Gerard says quietly.

"It's ok," Frank says again. "I mean, sure, it's a little weird after all this time and everything, but whatever it is, you don't need to keep it a secret."

"I can't tell you, Frank," Gerard says.

This is not going the way Frank hoped. He doesn't realize he's shouting until he hears it echo around them, "Why the fuck not?"

"It's complicated," Gerard says.

"What could be complicated about it?" Frank shouts. He's suddenly vibrating with anger, as though Gerard has refused one too many times and just broken something in Frank that was holding it in check.

"Ok, fine, it's not complicated at all, it's really quite simple," Gerard says. His voice is clipped. "I won't tell you."

"Why?" Frank bites out.

"I can't say it. If I say it - "

"It makes it true?" Frank says. "That's fucked up, Gee, that's a really messed up view of yourself."

"It is true," Gerard says. "I can't say it unless I want - " he stops.

"Unless you want, what? To be seen for who you really are? To be forced to accept it yourself?"

"Yes," Gerard says.

"That's terrible," Frank says. He and Gerard stare at each other, and then Gerard looks away, down the street.

"I know," Gerard says. "I'm sorry I didn't tell you about the blood," he says.

"That's what you're sorry about?" Frank knows this is where he could let the fight drop, walk away, but he's stung by Gerard's absolute refusal to share this with him. He feels like Gerard may as well have thrown him out of the mansion.

"I'm sorry about a lot of things," Gerard says. The more Gerard's saying, the sicker Frank feels, and it's worse than the worst coughing fit, worse than remembering what it felt like to think he was almost going to die. He feels empty and cold and he never, ever thought Gerard could make him feel like that.

"Not sorry enough to tell me what you are."

"I can't," Gerard says, miserably.

"I can't look at you right now," Frank says, and he turns and walks off down the street, in the opposite direction from home.

"Frank," Gerard says. "Frank, please." But Frank doesn't turn around, just shoves his hands into his pockets and walks. He hears Schechter get out of the carriage.

"What the fuck?" Schechter says.

"He's upset I can't tell him," Gerard says, frustrated, angry. Good, Frank thinks.

"What was it you said about me not making a scene?" Schechter's voice booms, and then Frank turns down the first cross street and walks until he's far enough away that can't hear Gerard's heartbeat.  
Frank walks until he's crossing over into the Daylighter part of the city. Little white signs have been printed at the demarcation, alerting passersby that it's the border where the Clan Code is superseded by Daylighter laws. Frank picks up his pace, and walks into the first bar he finds. He orders a beer, and then smiles at the bartender, showing his fangs. The bartender backs away, and then Frank turns the fanged smile to the people sitting on either side of him at the bar. One guy backs away, knocking over the barstool he's been sitting on; the other takes a swing at Frank. Frank is fast enough to dodge the punch, but he doesn't, letting the guy's fist catch him in the jaw. Frank stumbles and then turns and punches the guy who'd stumbled and backed away. In moments, the place is in an uproar. Frank gets pummeled, by fists and furniture, and his knuckles and lip split, and he's not thinking about anything except the immediacy of the fight.

Until the cops show up. Three uniforms and an Inspector, who quells the fighting long enough to say, "Would the vampire please show himself?"

Frank stands from where he's fallen and waves cheerily. One of his eyes is starting to swell shut, and he knows his shirt is covered in blood. There are several curses from the members of the bar about Frank's soulless threat to humanity.

"Outside, please," the Inspector says. Frank goes. He's waiting to be handcuffed, or shoved into the backseat of a carriage, but the Inspector merely removes his hat, and sighs. Frank blinks and he realizes he's looking at an exasperated Ray Toro. "Frank, what the hell," Ray says.

"Just wanted a beer."

"Sure," Ray says. "I'm sure that's exactly what happened. Now come on, go wait for me around the corner there. I'm going to go tell the gentlemen inside that I'm going to surrender you to the nearest Midnighter official."

"Are you?" Frank asks, not even trying to hide his disappointment.

"Yes," Ray says. "Because the nearest Midnighter official is in my apartment, and we're just a few blocks away."

Ray all but frog-marches Frank down a nicely tended street with electric street lamps as bright as day, up a walkway and into a brick building, where he orders Frank up the stairs. Before Frank can make it up to the door that's at the top landing, Bob Bryar is yanking it open and towering down at him.

"Ray?" He calls out.

"Drunk and disorderly," Ray says. "Without the drunk."

Bob gives Frank a look that could kill a newly turned vampire, and then disappears into the apartment. Frank tries to go back down the stairs, but Ray's at his back, urging him inside.

Ray's entryway is bright, his kitchen, which Ray is steering him into, crisp with white cabinets and polished counters that gleam in the bright lights. It's very Daylighter, and very Ray: clean and ordered like Ray in his uniform. He's taking off his jacket, showing the white t-shirt underneath.

Bob reappears, looming over Frank again, and he hands him a bag of ice.

"No more ice," Frank groans.

"What the fuck does that mean, no more ice?" Bob asks. "Shut up and put this on your face before your eye swells shut. Sit down over there, now."

There's no good that comes from arguing with Bob Bryar, so Frank doesn't. He sits, and puts the ice on his face, and listens to the hum of Ray's warm Daylighter apartment.

"Are you ok, Frank?" Ray asks, after Ray and Bob have a silent conversation during which Frank assumes Ray explains enough for Bob to understand why there's a beaten and battered vampire sitting on the lounge. "Did something happen?"

"Did they not release Gerard?" Bob asks.

"They did," Frank says, though it's muffled under the bag of ice.

"Did they alter the terms of his release?" Ray says.

"No," Frank says, lifting the ice off his face and sitting up. "Gerard's fine. Schechter took him home."

"Not you, though. You came into a Daylighter neighborhood for a bar brawl," Ray says.

"I was being stupid," Frank says, and puts the ice back so he doesn't have to look at either of them.

"Yeah," Ray says, "But believe it or not, it actually matters why."

Frank sighs. "It's personal," he says.

"Obviously," Bob says.

"We got into an argument, ok?" Frank says.

"Sounds like a bad argument," Ray says. "And your sorcerer couldn't help?"

"Fuck the sorcerer," Frank says. "Fuck Gerard, fuck all of them. I'm tired of being the only one who doesn't know any of everyone’s goddamn important secrets."

Frank puts the ice back over his face, but he hears Bob take a deep breath, stand, and walk into the other room.

"If you need a place to stay," Ray says.

"It's ok," Frank says. "I still have my old apartment. Dewees used to stay in it. Probably dusty, but fine."

"Ok," Ray says skeptically. "But you're staying here until you can see out of both eyes."

Frank nods under the ice.

After about half an hour, when some of the ice has started to melt, Bob comes over and lifts it off Frank's head. He examines Frank's injuries and seems satisfied before he says, "Ray's asleep," Bob says. "You staying here or am I bringing you to this apartment that you supposedly have?"

"I can get to my own apartment," Frank says.

"Yeah, no, your two choices are stay here or I take you there."

"Did you put Ray to bed?" Frank says with a smirk.

"Don't try to pick a fight with me, Iero," Bob says, and Frank quells.

"Sorry," Frank says immediately and means it. He may be feeling reckless but not quite that reckless. "Let's go, I'm over in the east quarter."

The walk in silence, and Bob seems to have some shortcut to the east quarter that Frank hasn't ever known about, because before he knows it, they're leaving behind the Daylighter streetlights and Frank feels the familiar glow of gas lamps and the bustling energy on the streets that means they're back in the Midnighter part of town.

"Here," Frank says, as they approach his old building.

"You still got a key to this place?" Bob says.

"Used to keep a spare in the hall."

"Why don't we go check, so I can break in if you need me to."

"Won't you have to file a report with the Blind Order or something?" Frank asks. "Willful breaking and entering?"

Bob glares at him. "I don't file reports."

The key is where Frank left it under the mat, and Bob pushes in front of Frank to search the apartment before Frank steps in. Frank follows him in; it looks fine, so he's not sure what Bob's looking for.

"Ok," Bob says. "How long you gonna stay here?"

Frank shrugs.

Bob says, "Frank, I don't know what's going on with you and Gerard, but sometimes people keep secrets for good reasons. Keep that in mind." And with that, Bob's out the door and heading back outside.

His apartment smells like stale air, but otherwise feels like it did last time, except it's a lot more empty, because it isn't really his any longer, and Dewees doesn't even crash here anymore, just sleeps in the servants’ quarters. Thinking about Dewees and the servants’ quarters makes him think about Gerard, and he wonders whether he's in his office, catching up on cases, or if he's in the greenhouse.

Frank pushes it out of his mind, and lies down on the old bed, since his coffin is at the Way Mansion. He plays through the fight in his head, looking for anything he might have misunderstood, looking for any sign that he let his anger get the better of him, that Gerard tried and Frank didn’t give him enough credit. All he hears is Gerard telling him he can't over and over, that Frank doesn't matter enough to know Gerard's secret.

So what if he isn't a Daylighter? What could he possibly be that would be so awful he'd have to hide it? Is he trying to protect Mikey? Are they the same? Frank can't make any sense of it, he can’t think of anything Gerard could possibly be that he’d need to keep from Frank, unless it was so awful Frank can't imagine it, or unless Frank isn't as important to Gerard as he thought he was. Either one leaves Frank feeling sick and confused, and that, paired with the aches in his body from the bar fight, just pushes everything out of his head until he forces himself asleep.

He's starving when he wakes up, and there's nothing in the ice box – and even if there had been any, it would have spoiled ages ago. He tries to remember where the nearest Clan Clinic is, but it's daylight, and all of them are too far for him to make a dash through the morning. Not like he even brought a sunproof cloak. Fuck.

"I see you weren't thinking," Schechter says, startling Frank so badly he trips over his own feet and falls. Schechter hands him a bag of blood.

"Is this - " Frank says. For some stupid reason, he can't say Gerard's name.

"What do you think?" Schechter says. "Don't be any more stupid than you already have been. Drink."

Frank does, and then he runs a bath, and changes into an old t-shirt and jeans he didn't remember leaving here, and he's hoping Schechter will be gone when he comes out, but he's sitting at the window with the fire escape, looking out through the sun curtain like it's open.

"What's going on, Frank?" Schechter says, when Frank comes out, toweling his hair.

"I don't wanna fucking talk about it," Frank says. "Did Bob tell you where I was?"

"I don't need Bob Bryar to tell me where you are," Schechter says. "But I did hear about the bar fight. Nice." When Frank doesn't say anything, Schechter says, "You need to talk to Gerard."

"I’ve tried that,” Frank says. “He won’t tell me anything. Anyway, like you can fucking talk. You know his secret," Frank says.

"No," Schechter says slowly.

"You do, don't lie to me," Frank says. He tosses the towel across the back of a chair, sits down at his kitchen table, not facing Schechter.

"There are things that I know," Schechter says, "Because I'm a fucking sorcerer. But no, I don't know this big secret. Did you ever think that maybe Gerard meant it when he said he can't tell? It's not just you he can't tell. He can't tell anyone."

"Alicia knows," Frank says.

"Alicia is Fairy and she's more powerful than I am," Schechter says, looking as though it's something he regrets admitting, "But are you really trying to tell me that you think Gerard told Alicia something that he couldn't tell me, or you?"

Schechter has a point, it's kind of a ridiculous idea. "Then what the hell kind of secret is it? Why can't he tell us?"

"Why don't you ask him?"

"Because it's just going to end up with us fighting," Frank says. "He can't tell me anything I'd ask. And that's just going to piss me off even more."

"Enough that you're moving out?" Schechter says.

Frank buries his face in his arms on the table. "I don't know," Frank says. "I don't know how to talk to him."

"Ok, so don't talk," Schechter says. "The mansion's big enough that you can avoid each other for a while. But then at least you won't have left him."

Frank looks up, started at the concern in Schechter's voice. "I'm not trying to leave him, I'm just - " Frank sighs. He's not sure. "I'm just angry."

"So come and be angry at the goddamn mansion," Schechter says. "You can both fight or not talk to each other or whatever you want, and you can be nearby so I can treat your illness, but don't do this."

"Fine," Frank says, after a long moment. Schechter's hand is immediately on his shoulder, and they walk out in a cloak of darkness to a carriage, which travels a little faster than it should.

Dewees opens the door for them when they pull up, and then screams and runs behind a hedge when he sees Schechter. "God fucking dammit," Schechter says, and shepherds Frank inside. He removes the darkness once they close the door and the sun curtain is closed behind them.

"Brian, is that - " Gerard says, rushing into the hall. His hair is a mess and he's got dark circles under his eyes. He doesn't look like he's eaten anything since his release. "Oh," he says, when he sees Frank, and then when he seems to register the evidence of the bar fight all over Frank's body, he says, "Oh my god, Frank are you ok?" he takes a few steps forward, and then stops.

"I'm fine," Frank says.

"Oh," Gerard says. They stare at each other.

"I'm gonna go take a nap," Frank says though he’s not tired at all, and turns away from Gerard. He knows he's being cruel, but he can't. He can't talk to him. He's here. That has to be enough.  
"That's not how it should work, Mikey," Gerard is saying, just this side of a shout. Frank's heading for the formal dining room looking for Dewees, since he's hidden there before, when he stumbles on Gerard and Mikey in the middle of another fight.

"You don't know everything," Mikey says, the same tone in his voice, like the brothers can't help but sound alike even as they're fighting.

"When it comes to what's best for you, I certainly do," Gerard says.

"So what if I let Pete feed on me that one time. It's my business."

"No, Mikey, it's not. It's not just your business." Gerard says. "And look what happened."

"There's no reason anyone can explain why he'd get sick after feeding on me."

"Victoria has reason to suspect - "

"You mean you," Mikey says. "You have reason to suspect. You know something and you're not saying anything to anyone and it doesn't make sense because Frank's sick, too, so if you know something, you should tell me."

"Frank is going to be fine, I'm taking care of him," Gerard says. "All you need to know is not to let anyone feed on you. Especially not Pete again."

Frank backs himself out of the hall before they notice he's there. Gerard's stubborn refusal to answer Mikey's questions is rubbing his nerves raw, and he just has to get outside.

 

Mikey's walking around the stone paths of the west outbuildings by the time Frank comes back around toward the house. Mikey's holding a golden flower in his hands.

"Gerard told me it's a clytie flower," Mikey says, not even a hello. Frank wonders how long Mikey's known he's been following him. "It's his version of an apology, I guess."

Frank rolls his eyes.

"It's supposed to light up if I'm going toward the thing I'm thinking about," Mikey says.

"And what are you thinking about?"

"Soup," Mikey says. "Though I think it's a bad test case, since I saw Cortez with the butternut squash in the kitchen on my way out."

"How did you know I was here?"

"I'm the great detective's little brother," Mikey says, deadpan, and then, "I heard you coughing. The yard echoes with the outbuildings. What's up with that?"

"The echo?"

"The coughing."

Frank shrugs.

"Fine," Mikey says, "Pretend it's fine, you and Gerard are too fucking alike." He raises his eyebrows. Mikey takes a seat at the old gazebo, sets the flower down, and it hovers off, about a foot from him and stops.

Frank kicks at the stones on the path. Mikey looks at him, waits. "So, Alicia."

Mikey looks at Frank, and then smiles, which surprises Frank. "You're worried." Mikey shakes his head. "Frank, that's really sweet, I never knew you had such a concern for my relationships." They watch the flower hover and shift with some current in the wind.

"So are you- "

"Don't ask, Frank, you don't want to know."

"You can't be in a relationship with both the head of Seelie court and Pete Wentz," Frank says.

"Alicia's not the head," Mikey says. "She's...." Mikey waves his hand in a vague way.

"She's what?" Frank asks.

"It's not as simple as that."

"It doesn't matter," Frank says deliberately. "You still can't date her at the same time you're dating Pete."

"We're not like that," Mikey says dismissively. "And since when are you some kind of expert on relationships? You're the one dating Gerard."

Frank figures Mikey has a point. He's about to turn away when he gets an idea.

"Can I borrow that?" Frank says, pointing at the flower. Mikey shrugs and waits for Frank to put out his hands, and when he does, he drops the flower in. It turns itself upright, floating as though it's suspended in water. The petals are soft in Frank's palms.

"What are you looking for?" Mikey asks, though there's something in his tone that makes him think Mikey already has an idea.

"None of your fucking business," Frank says. "I'm just going to wander." Mikey laughs.

"Ok," Mikey says. "I'll just go inside and have some of Cortez's soup."

"Ok," Frank says, and he waits for the door to close before he looks at the flower, and thinks hard about the thing he wants to know. He turns in a slow circle until the flower lights up. He looks up and sees that he's facing the greenhouse. That's not what he wants to know, though. He wants to know Gerard's secret, and why he can't tell Frank. He wants to know why someone would threaten the Governor just to find out that secret.

The flower flickers as Frank turns away from the house, then glows again when he turns back toward the greenhouse. He thinks the flower must want to go back inside, because it glows brighter and brighter the closer Frank gets. Finally, just outside the greenhouse, the flower is so incandescent it barely looks like a flower at all, and Frank's worried it's going to burst into flames and burn his fingers. Frank sets it down in a bed of small purple flowers. They look familiar, but he can't remember their name. They sway gently, and the glow of the clytie flower starts to fade.

Frank's annoyed that he got his hopes up over the clytie flower, but he's thought of another way to find out what Gerard might be. He decides to go to the Clan Clinic to ask Victoria about allergy transference, to see if there's some other reason he's missed about why having had Gerard's blood might have made him allergic to the same things Gerard is allergic to. He knows he can trust Victoria not to pry too much into why exactly Frank's asking now.

The problem is, as soon as he's in the Clan Clinic, he has a coughing fit, and when Victoria sees him, she thinks that's the reason he's come in and orders him to keep quiet while she ices his chest.

Frank's sitting in the dark in the Clan Clinic, trying to keep his hands away from the ice on his chest so he doesn't get too cold when he hears the alert sound.

"High priority patient," a voice rings out, "They just called it in for you, Dr. Asher."

"What level?" she asks.

"Vampire, Level 1," the voice answers. "They wanted the clinic cleared."

"I've only got one patient here and I'm not moving him," Asher says. Frank tries to shout out that he's fine but chokes before he can get the words out.

"What happened," Victoria asks, as Frank hears the commotion of the patient arriving.

"He was drinking and then he just - he collapsed," a voice says.

"Was he drinking from you?" Victoria asks.

"No," the voice says, and Frank realizes he knows that voice. It's Mikey. "From a bag, we brought it in."

"Can you hear me?" Victoria asks. "How do you feel? Pete?"

And then Frank understands who the priority patient is, and who brought him in.

"I'm fine, just dizzy," Pete says, though his voice sounds slurred too.

"Have a seat in there, Mr. Way," a nurse is saying. "We're going to take a look at him and we'll let you know as soon as you can come see him." The door to Frank's room opens and someone says, "No, no, not - "

"It's fine," Frank says, "Come in, Mikey."

"Frank?" Mikey says. Mikey steps cautiously into the room. "Frank, what happened?"

"I'm fine," Frank says.

"You don't look that good," Mikey says and sounds badly shaken.

"Neither do you," Frank says and Mikey kind of catches on a laugh. "Were you with Pete? What happened?"

Mikey sits down in a chair, wrings his hands. "Seriously, I don't know," Mikey says. "He was just drinking, like normal, and he just fell over. Looked like he was having a hard time talking. Joe called the clinic, and here we are."

"What do you think happened?"

"It's Pete, who knows?" Mikey says. "He started looking better as soon as he got here, so maybe it's just - " Mikey stops. "What are you here for?"

"My cough or whatever," Frank says.

"I thought you were getting better?"

Frank shrugs. "I'm fine."

"I want ice on his neck and his feet," Victoria's saying in the hall. "I need to take this to the lab. You can let Mr. Way in."

Frank sits up to follow Mikey.

"Mr. Iero - " Victoria protests.

"I'm fine," Frank says. "I want to keep an eye on Mikey," he says quietly.

Almost as soon as Victoria is gone, Dewees is there, opening the door. "Announcing Mr. -" he says and Gerard barrels in. "Mikey, are you ok? Brian said you were here and - " Gerard suddenly catches Frank out of the corer of his eye and stops. "Frank?" Frank looks pointedly away.

Mikey's not paying attention to either of them, he's only talking to Pete, who's smiling wide, though there's a wince every few breathes.

"Pete," Gerard says.

"Gerard," Pete says back.

A nurse shuffles in, brings Pete ice, which she arranges on his forehead, and his heels.

Gerard looks at the ice, looks at Frank, and looks back at the ice. Gerard grabs Mikey by the elbow, hard, and Mikey says, "Ow," but Gerard just pulls him tighter.

Gerard's whispering close to Mikey's ear and he has to know that the vampires can hear him. Or at least Frank can, Pete looks like he's distracted by whatever he's feeling. Frank goes over and carefully closes the door, nodding at Dewees on the other side, two sentinels.

Gerard's asking Mikey if Pete was feeding from him. "No!" Mikey jerks away.

Gerard doesn't bother with whispering now. "Has he since the ball, though?"

The Way brothers stare at each other. Frank feels the air in the room start to crackle. Even Pete seems to notice and tries to turn, making the ice rattle. "Has he, Mikey?"

"Just once," Mikey mumbles.

"You promised me!" Gerard explodes.

"It's not like he was trying to turn me," Mikey spits back. "It's totally normal if you're careful."

"This is normal?" Gerard says, gesturing to Pete on the table.

"What's going on?" Pete asks.

Frank realizes, in a dizzying moment, that whatever Gerard is, whatever kind of Midnighter he is, Mikey is the same. It's obviously a family thing, because Mikey's blood has some sort of weird effect on Pete that Gerard's has on Frank. Frank makes the connection for the first time that it's not just that Gerard can give him more blood than a Daylighter could, but that Gerard's blood, not the ritual of the Trading, might be thing that's making him sick.

"Mikey, I don't make these rules just to piss you off," Gerard says. "They're for your own protection."

"Well maybe you shouldn't be making rules for me in the first place," Mikey says.

"Whatever is actually going on," Frank says hesitantly, "Maybe we shouldn't be having this argument here?" He can barely follow what Gerard and Mikey are saying because he's too busy freaking out, but he can tell this isn't a good place for them to be fighting.

"Frank's right, come on," Gerard says, though he's watching Frank carefully, and Frank knows his peace-making has caught Gerard by surprise. Mikey crosses his arms.

"I'm staying with Pete," Mikey says.

"Fine," Gerard says. "Pete, come by the mansion when you're feeling better. I'll have Brian look over you. And we need to talk."

Mikey's eyes go wide, and Pete just nods. "Are you coming, Frank?" Gerard says uncertainly. "How did you find Mikey?"

Frank looks at him for a second and then realizes that Gerard thinks Frank came in with Mikey. "Just chance," Frank says.

Gerard opens the door and Dewees is fending off a nurse. "Sirs," he says when he sees them. He opens the doors. They both go tense, and Gerard climbs in, obviously not sure if Frank's going to follow. Frank’s moving mostly by rote at this point, a sick kind of panic fogging all of his thoughts.

"Thanks," Gerard says awkwardly. "For intervening."

"Your blood," Frank says, and Gerard bristles. "It's the same, isn't it? You and Mikey?" It's not quite what he needs to ask, but he's surprised he was even to say the word 'blood' without breaking.

"Don't, Frank," Gerard says, and Frank doesn't try to say anything else for the rest of the ride home.  
They get out of the carriage without looking at each other, before Dewees can open either door, and Gerard takes the path to the outside entrance to the greenhouse without looking back. Frank goes upstairs and tries to lie down, but all that happens is that every thought in the dark of his coffin turns to the sharp, impossible idea that Gerard's blood is making him sick, but that not having Gerard's blood makes him worse.

Frank can't actually fall asleep, and sitting in the coffin with his eyes open makes him feel claustrophobic, so after half an hour, he gets up and goes downstairs, where he runs into Patrick, following Greta carrying what looks like a brass wind chime. Frank's about to ask what it is when a voice behind him says, "Hi 'Trick."

Patrick turns on his heel and blinks at Pete.

"Still no hat?" Pete says, and then his cackle turns into kind of a cough.

"Why - are you coughing?" Patrick says.

"Caught a cold since you've been gone," Pete says.

"Bullshit," Patrick says, taking a few steps forward, as though trying to see something in the air around Pete. "What did you do to yourself?"

"Nothing!" Pete says. "I'm a medical mystery." His delight only makes Patrick step closer. "Seriously, man, where is your hat?"

"I'm not having you stonewall me if I've got an epidemic on my hands," shouts a voice down the hall and then Victoria is stalking down the hall after Schechter.

"And I'm telling you we don't have an epidemic," Schechter says.

"I have two vampires exhibiting symptoms of Daylighter illnesses."

"Exactly," Schechter says. "Exhibiting symptoms. They don't actually have Daylighter illnesses."

"But if -"

"Victoria," Schechter says, "We have an audience." She turns and sees Pete, Frank, Patrick, and Greta.

"Daylighter illness?" Patrick asks Pete.

"Greta," Schechter says firmly, "Take Patrick to the library. Wentz, in my office. You, too, Frank," Schechter says, and Frank gives up any hope he had of getting out of an interrogation.

What's worse is that Gerard's waiting inside Schechter's office.

"Can I just – " Frank says.

"Stand over here," Schechter says to Frank, sending him to stand opposite the window, "You too, Wentz." Pete comes over to stand next to Frank, wincing a little as he straightens up. Frank sees a brief flicker of anger on Gerard's face, and then Gerard goes back to watching Brian, as though in a moment, he too will be asked to stand against the wall.

"Why do I feel like we're about to be featured in an episode of Sorcerer's Most Wanted?" Pete murmurs.

"Quiet," Schechter says, and then Frank feels the tingle of magic on his skin.

"Impressive," Pete says. "So he really could turn us to dust with a snap of his fingers."

"Don't tempt me, Wentz. Frank, go stand by Gerard." That's the last thing Frank wants to do, but he can't exactly refuse.

"Don't leave me alone in the line-up, Frank," Pete says, faking desperate.

Frank stands as far as possible from Gerard while still being on the same side of the room. They don't look at each other.

"Hey, so listen, you know that Midnighter blood cocktail Victoria has us on," Pete says conversationally to Frank, ignoring the obvious awkwardness. "You have any, like, old injuries disappearing?"

Frank goes perfectly still.

"You know, like, how sometimes cocktails help you heal faster after sunlight poisoning and whatever," Pete continues. "But I have this scar - or well, I had a scar - from the Clan Protest Assault, being left out in the sun leaves a mark, you know? But now it's gone."

"That can't be possible," Schechter says, "Take off your shirt. Show me."

Pete doesn't even make a smartass remark, just lifts up his shirt, pulls out his arm to show where the scar used to be. "Here to here," Pete says. Frank can see from here, the skin's perfectly smooth, no sign of sun scarring.

"When?" Gerard says, his voice tight. "When did you notice it was gone?"

"A few days ago," Pete says.

"When did you first drink from my brother?" Gerard demands. Frank unintentionally catches Gerard's eyes and Gerard looks quickly away.

"Hey, I'm not talking about my sex life with you," Pete says.

"You think he gave something to Mikey?" Frank asks. Gerard doesn't respond

"When was it, Pete?" Gerard demands.

"A few days after you assholes did the Trading," Pete says flatly. Gerard's the one who catches Frank's eyes this time, and they hold each other's gaze, though Frank has no idea what he sees in Gerard's face.

"Can everyone shut the fuck up?" Schechter demands. He scans Pete for another minute and then says, "Does Mikey know about the scar?"

"About it being gone? No," Pete says, "Give me some credit, I'm not gonna freak him out any more than I already have." Gerard actually gives Pete a brief, appraising look.

"Go," Schechter says, to Pete, who gladly gets out of Schechter's way.

"I'll go talk to Mikey," Gerard says.

"Let me," Schechter says

"I didn't give him anything, did I?" Pete asks.

"No," Schechter says, "Whatever this is, it's strictly vampire."

Pete looks relieved, and Frank takes the opportunity to bolt from Schechter's office and to hide himself in the kitchen, where Cortez pointedly ignores the fact that Frank's unbuttoning his shirt and looking down at his chest. Frank's scar is still gone, and he still has no idea what it means.  
A messenger delivers the Midnighter Metro News Special Edition. The headline announces the werewolf called Bert is being pursued by law enforcement officials after being accused of luring a Daylighter couple into an ambush by several members of the Shallow Believers, who then attempted to forcibly transform the couple into werewolves.

Frank can't possibly stay still when the werewolf called Bert is on the run. He goes to Schechter with the newspaper, and says, "You have to help me do something."

Schechter, to his surprise, doesn't argue. "You'll still be sick," Schechter says, and Frank can't help but hear it like an accusation.

"I know," Frank says automatically. He knows he's not getting better, though he's forgotten for a minute that he's supposed to pretend otherwise. Schechter hasn't forgotten, though, just glares at him.

"Give me your arm," Schechter says.

When Frank hesitates, Schechter sighs and says, "I'm giving you a kind of tattoo."

"Vampire can't get tattoos," Frank says, and intensely regrets it when he sees the look on Schechter's face. "Is it some sort of... magical tattoo?" Frank says.

Schechter doesn't actually look any less murderous, but he finally speaks "It's a complicated braid of spells woven into the ink during the process of..." Schechter seems to see the moment Frank stops understanding him. "Yes, you could say it's a magical tattoo."

"And it will stop my symptoms?" Frank asks.

"It will mask them," Schechter says. "They'll still be there, but just in the background. It won't work for long; eventually the symptoms will come back. A couple of hours at most," Schechter says. "And don't tell Gerard."

It makes Frank think of the missing scar – which he knows he should tell Schechter about, but he can't manage to bring it up. "There," Schechter says, and there's a small circle of blue ink on Frank's forearm where the skin had been bare. "I'm going to a series sorcerer candidacy interviews, so whatever you do, please try to stay out of trouble, I'll be unreachable until early next morning."  
The first thing Frank does is go to the Governor's Mansion. He finds security doubly visible around and inside the building. Jamia and Lindsey are having a heated argument in Lindsey's office.

"I'm not going into hiding," Lindsey says. "The werewolf called Bert is not any more dangerous now than he was a week ago."

"He just attacked Daylighters," Jamia says.

"He lured them to the rogue werewolf faction, that's a lot different than sending a veiled threat."

"Tell her I'm right, Frank," Jamia says, for the first time acknowledging that he's there. "That's why you're here, isn't it?

"I heard the news," Frank says. "I thought he might – "

"Come after me?" Lindsey says. "Why, all of a sudden? No one can give me a good reason, and I won't get caught up in a panic."

"He doesn't need a reason, he's crazy," Jamia says. "He doesn't need to be an evil mastermind to hurt you."

Frank doesn't hear Lindsey's response, because the window behind him shatters. There's a bundle of herbs on the floor amidst the broken glass, it's starting to spark and fill the room with a weird light, like the solstice bough at the protest.

"Come on, help me get her out of here," Jamia shouts, and Frank realizes the Governor is standing frozen as if hypnotized by the light.

There's a rush of security toward them as Jamia and Frank haul a stunned Lindsey into the hallway. Frank hears the sound of the carpet in the Governor's office catching fire.

"Are you ok? Lindsey, are you all right?" Jamia asks, shaking Lindsey by the shoulders.

"What – " Lindsey says dazedly.

"I lit a fire for the people in charge," the werewolf called Bert says, coming out of the Governor's office. Frank has no idea how he got inside, but he sees the prone figures of several of the security guards behind him.

"Not the nicest bouquet of flowers I've ever received," Lindsey says. Jamia's yanking on Lindsey's elbow to try and get her to run, but she's not moving. "You could have just made an appointment, if you wanted to see me," Lindsey says.

"I wanted to see the crash," the werewolf called Bert says. "And the sparks."

"I'm not telling you the detective's secret," she declares.

"I don't care about that anymore," the werewolf called Bert says. "I've got a better informant. Or maybe I'm the informant. I can't quite tell sometimes."

"Come on," Jamia hisses. "Frank, help me."

"Frank the vampire valet," the werewolf called Bert says, with a wild-eyed smile. "Fancy meeting you here. Shouldn't you be at home, with your master?

"What does that mean?" Frank asks. "You leave Gerard alone."

The werewolf called Bert is reaching into his pocket and pulling out another herb bundle. Frank thinks he's going to need a match to light it, but the werewolf called Bert just blows on the bundle and it starts to smolder.

"Come on, come on, run," Jamia says, and finally Lindsey listens. Frank runs after them, just as Bert tosses the smoldering flower bomb into the air.

Bob and Brendon come tearing down the hall in the opposite direction, toward the werewolf called Bert, followed closely by Ray, and Pete.

"You ok?" Ray shouts when he sees them, and when Lindsey manages a reassurance, Ray continues off down the hall.

They run all the way into the courtyard, where the three of immediately surrounded by a veritable wall of Clan officers, Daylighter police, and cloaked figures of the Blind Order.

"So, I may have been wrong," Lindsey says, to Jamia. "About the werewolf called Bert."

Jamia laughs but it comes out like a sob.

A moment later, Alicia is pressing her way through the impromptu security detail. She looks fierce and furious as she looks first Lindsey, then Jamia up and down. "I should have killed him years ago," she says, and then she looks at Frank. "You should go find Gerard."

"Why?" Frank says. "What's happened?"

"It's about what will happen," Alicia says, and it scares him enough that he runs all the way back to the mansion despite the burning ache in his lungs.  
"Where's Gerard? Have you seen him?" Frank asks, bursting in through the door and nearly running down Dewees.

"He went down to the basement level," Dewees says, and Frank takes the stairs two at a time.

"Gerard? Gerard, where are you?" Frank can't help the fear in his voice echoing down the stone hall. He steps into a room where one of the torches has been it, and is casting long shadows across the ground.. "Look, I don't want a fight, it's just that Alicia said –"

"Frank?" Gerard says, appearing behind him. "Greta said you were down here. Is everything ok?"

Gerard steps into the room, and when he's close enough for Frank to see him lit by the firelight but not to be able to reach out for the torch, there's a grinding sound, like stone on stone, and then a whoosh that sounds - it just sounds bad.

"Did the door just close?" Frank asks. "Was it, like, a lever or something?" Frank's still pulling at the seam in the wall where the door had been. "Hello?" he shouts. "Dewees? Greta?"

"Frank," Gerard says quietly. "Are you all right? Your shirt is burned, and you sound – "

"Alicia said – " Frank says, and then he staggers, finally realizing how weak he feels. "The werewolf called Bert attacked the Governor, and then Alicia was there and she said I should find you."

"I'm fine," Gerard says. "Is the Governor ok?"

"It was one of the flower bombs," Frank says, staggering again and finally leaning against the wall. "She's fine, so's Jamia. Bob was there, and Ray. And the Order. And– " Frank starts to cough. He's coughing too much, he knows it now, knows the edge between when he can get it under control and when he's going to short circuit is body and fall over. Gerard seems to know, too, because he's stepping forward, a hand on Frank's shoulder, pushing him toward the bench to sit. They haven't touched in days, and Frank would like to see in Gerard's face what he means by it, but his eyes are watering too much to see anything but Gerard's blurry shape sitting down next to him. He's just so relieved to have found Gerard, to have found him safe.

Gerard doesn't say anything, just smoothes his hand over Frank's back until the coughing subsides into long wheezes.

"What is this room anyway?" Frank asks as he looks around.

The room has grey walls of stone, several stone slabs along the walls, a small stone dais a few feet off the floor. Places for torches in the walls but nothing that's burned in here for years. "Is this like a root cellar or something?"

Gerard shrugs. "It's a room I had hoped not to see for a long time," Gerard says quietly. "We're under the greenhouse," Gerard says in a totally different tone of voice, the kind Frank is used to when Gerard's telling him something new and exciting about a case. "Right up there," Gerard says, pointing to the left corner, "That's the foxglove's table."

"You knew this was here?"

"I know where everything in my house is," Gerard says. His voice is light but there's still something off about it.

"So are we in the basement?"

"It's just a room, Frankie," Gerard says. "There's not a way out once the door closes like that. We're going to have to wait until Brian finishes his interviews. I wish we had some ice," Gerard says.

"I'm ok," Frank says, but his voice is weak. He wishes they had ice, too, because as much as he fucking hates it, the coughing always gets worse before it gets better, and he really doesn't want to pass out down here.

"You want to lie down?" Gerard asks, scooting over on the bench. "I know sometimes that helps." His voice is hesitant, but in a gentle way.

"Yeah, sometimes that - " Frank says, but then he starts coughing again. Gerard's back at his side as Frank's vision goes swimmy, a hand curled protectively around his shoulder. It makes him feel safe, in this moment, even with all the tension between them. He's sick, and Gerard's there, and for this one moment they don't have to fight.

When the fit subsides, Frank stays a few minutes with his head between his knees, afraid that moving, even to lie down, will start the coughing up again.

"There's one thing that will make it better," Gerard says. "I know you don't want me to bring it up..."

"Of course I want you to bring it up," Frank rasps. "That's all I want, for you to talk about - " but he's cut off by a cough.

"Come on, Frank, please, let's not fight. Just. Drink. It will stop this, for a little while."

Frank shakes his head.

"You know it will make it better," Gerard says.

"Tell me why," Frank says, "And I'll do it."

"Frank," Gerard says, his voice tense. Frank coughs again. "Frank, don't be stubborn. You're going to make yourself worse. It's not like you haven't been drinking my blood."

"It's not like you haven't been lying to me about it," Frank says.

"Dammit, Frank, just drink," Gerard says. It's practically an order. He's already unknotting his tie, opening his collar.

"So long as I don't ask you what you are."

"Oh, you can ask," Gerard says, hauling Frank up by the shoulders so he's leaning limply against Gerard.

"You just won't tell me," Frank says, and feels Gerard's hands squeeze tightly on his arms as he tries to swallow back a cough.

"Exactly," Gerard says. "Drink."

"From your wrist," Frank says, because he's starting to get dizzy, and there really isn't a lot more to his argument than stubbornness.

"No," Gerard says, "You know that won't make a difference. Like this," he says, and he's got his hand on the back of Frank's head, guiding him toward his neck.

"If someone lets us out in a few minutes - "

"Trust me, Frankie, I won't let you hurt me," Gerard says, and then Gerard's pulling back his collar, his hand at the back of Frank's neck, drawing him in. Frank's mouth lands on Gerard's collarbone and Gerard sighs. Frank kisses the spot without thinking, teeth just dragging against the skin and Gerard makes a soft whimper.

"That's distracting," Gerard says, a hitch in his voice. "Here," Gerard says, a hand on the back of his head, steering him towards his neck. Frank kisses there instead, sucking hard and Gerard tips his head back, groaning. "Distracting," Gerard says, a little more brokenly. "I'm not scared, Frankie, I don't need you to ease me into it."

Frank's scared, though. Frank hasn't bitten a live person since just after he was turned. It's a normal part of the Clan transition, to teach you how to bite, to drink properly without choking. He's never really had the desire, as long as he's not hungry. He has the desire now. He wants to bite into Gerard's neck and taste him.

"Gee," Frank says.

"It's ok to want it, Frankie," Gerard whispers, tugging his hand through Frank's hair, and Frank gives in, sinks his teeth into the softness of Gerard's neck. Gerard gasps, but then he makes a small pleased sound, which Frank can feel against his throat. Gerard is warm and sweet and swaying gently under him, and Frank is terrified.

He pulls away and Gerard grips his shoulder, eyes still closed, "That's not enough, Frankie."

"Enough," Frank says, and he kisses over the wound, licking down Gerard's neck.

"Christ, Frankie," Gerard says, and they breathe together, Gerard's eyes closed, his mouth open, his hand still possessively on Frank's head. "If we're down here longer," Gerard says, after several quiet minutes, "You'll drink more, ok?

"Ok," Frank says, though he's clear-headed enough that it's a really a no. Gerard huffs and smiles, his eyes closed.

"You ok?" Frank asks.

"Tired," Gerard says.

"Sleep," Frank says, soothing his fingers over the back of Gerard's hand. "It's ok, I'll keep watch."

"I know you will," Gerard says. "But I won't sleep here." he sits up, adjusts his legs under him leans on Frank. The stone is cold but Frank settles next to Gerard, and after a moment, arranges himself so he's laying on his back, his head in Gerard's lap. Gerard strokes his fingers over Frank's forehead, through his hair. Frank closes his eyes, and Gerard's fingers brush his face, just for a moment, so quickly, and so gently, that Frank can't find it in himself to call Gerard on it, or protest. He listens to Gerard's breathing, and the flicker of the torch.  
Schechter appears nearly two hours later, the door flying open and light streaming in around Schechter's shadowy form.

"What the fucking hell," he says. "I've been looking for you two for ages. I searched the whole house and the carriage was still here, and then I used the aura scanner which I was not comfortable doing but I had to do something since I could feel you here but you weren't anywhere I could see. Is this - " he says, stopping abruptly and looking around.

"Yeah," Gerard says quietly.

"Is this what?" Frank asks.

"Who put you in here?" Schechter demands, so angry he's starting to glow.

"I don't know," Gerard says quietly. "James sent Frank after me and Greta sent me after Frank – "

"Alicia said," Frank says, and then stops. "She wanted me to find Gerard."

"The werewolf called Bert has been arrested," Schechter says. "Though it seems you already know about that," he says pointedly to Frank. "Let's go." Then Schechter sees the marks on Gerard's neck, and while Frank's expecting Schechter to scream at him for taking the risk, all he says is, "I'm sorry I didn't get here sooner," and then Frank feels Brian's palm in the middle of his chest like he reached right through him.  
They don't talk about what happened in the basement room Frank never knew existed, but they're able to stay in the same room companionably the next evening. The fire's dying down in the hearth and Frank is thinking about getting up to stoke it, but he's been reading the copy of the Mindless Act Jamia gave him and he's comfortably sharing the couch with Gerard. Gerard isn't trying to force a conversation and Frank isn't either. It's almost normal, and Frank isn't willing to do anything to break the moment. Gerard turns the pages of the book he's reading about night blooming geraniums and Frank learns that there's a section in the Mindless Act about garbage transference to Midnighter refuse-dwellers.

Mikey wanders in and sits down loudly in the armchair, thumping his feet on the ottoman.

"Gerard," Mikey says. Frank knows the tone. He sits up straight, tries to focus on the Mindless Act, but he can feel Gerard tense beside him.

"Can it wait, Mikey?” Gerard asks. Frank tries to let himself believe that Gerard wants their quiet moment of ceasefire to remain uninterrupted, but it's also possible he's trying to ask Mikey to save it for when Frank isn't around.

"Nope," Mikey says. Gerard sighs.

"I'll just - " Frank starts to get up, but Mikey's voice stops him.

"No, Frank, really, stay, you might find this interesting."

Gerard glances at Frank, and it feels like the first time they've looked at each other in months. Gerard's expression says, "Really, you can leave." It's kind, he wants to spare Frank the ugly Way brothers fight. Frank feels that's the real moment he decides to stay; Gerard looks scared. He can feel something in Mikey that's making him nervous.

Frank sits back cautiously, but sets aside the Mindless Act. Mikey doesn't say anything.

"What is it, Mikey?" Gerard says. Not quite as harshly as he could, as though he can't help feel concern for whatever's hurt his brother under this cloak of anger.

"What's in my blood?" Mikey says. His face is serious, dour, and Frank is kind of wishing he'd left when Gerard gave him the chance.

"What?" Gerard says, almost choking.

"You know what it is. Otherwise you wouldn't have warned me."

"Warned you about what, Mikey, what are you talking about?"

"You didn't tell me not to let Pete drink from me because you thought it was bad, or because you thought we were too serious. You warned me not to. And you all but lorded it over me when Pete got sick."

"That's not - "

"Then why is he worse?"

"He's worse?" Frank says.

At the same moment, Gerard stands up and says, "Why did you let him drink from you again?"

"See?" Mikey says, standing, too, pointing a long finger at his brother. "You know he's sick because he drank from me."

"That's not how it works, Mikey."

"How what works, Gerard?" Mikey snaps back, and Gerard goes to storm out of the room. For a minute Frank thinks it's over, that's it, but then Mikey says, "Is that why Frank's sick?" and Frank feels the bottom drop out from under him.

"Don't," Gerard bites out. His tone is suddenly quite threatening.

"What?” Mikey says, equally as harsh. "Don't get involved in your personal life? Don't point out that maybe you don't know everything?"

"Oh, do tell me, Mikey, tell me what it is you think you know better."

"I've been talking to Alicia," Mikey says. Frank winces.

"Oh, and so Alicia knows more about mysterious vampire illness, more about what's in our blood and how it works than I do?"

"She's told me why you're keeping things from me."

"No, she hasn't," Gerard says, with a laugh that raises the hairs on the back of Frank's neck. "Alicia can't tell you that."

"So you fucking tell me," Mikey says. "You think you're this amazing older brother, but you just dictate what I can and can’t know about myself."

"That's not true, Mikey," Gerard says quietly. "You know everything I can tell you."

"What do you think, Frank?" Mikey asks. "Are you feeling better?"

The words slice across the room and though Frank would actually be on Mikey's side if it came down to it, he's not about to let himself be used as a weapon in this fight.

"I'm going upstairs," Frank says.

"Frank, wait – " Gerard says, but Frank can't stay.

"You did this, you know," he hears Mikey tell Gerard. "You just keep making everything worse."

"Frank," Gerard says, a few steps behind him just as Frank reaches the second floor. Frank turns, slower than he means too. He's still stunned by Mikey, by the spectacular fight, still worried that if he steps wrong, it'll flare up again even though Mikey's already out the door. "Could we - could I talk to you for a moment?"

It's softer than Mikey's request earlier; softer than he's heard Gerard in a long time. He nods, and he only hesitates when he realizes that Gerard's asking him into the bedroom. Gerard notices immediately and says, "Sorry, we can go to the sitting room or - "

"No," Frank says, "It's fine." Frank feels horrible for being so stupid. It's just Gerard's bedroom, though he's only been in here when Gerard isn’t.

Frank sits on the bed, the way he usually sits when Gerard's telling him about a case, back against the headboard, relaxed and attentive. Gerard smiles a gentle, fond smile when he sees, and then seems to catch himself and shoves his hands in his pockets. He's pacing back and forth in front of the bed. It's not the first time Frank's seen him do this, but it's the first time he's known it's about him.

"I'm sorry," Gerard says. "I've been a complete jerk about things. An idiot. I've been a jerk and an idiot." He doesn't wait for Frank to get a word in before continuing. "This thing with Mikey, it's brought to light how selfish I've been about things. I've been protecting myself and telling myself I was protecting Mikey, that I was protecting you, but it's just been complete selfishness."

Frank doesn't want to point out that Mikey's issues aren't the same as what's going on between them, but Gerard is trying to be so earnest, and he's still pacing, and so Frank sits back and listens.

"I know you don't want to hear it, but I meant it when I said there were things I couldn't tell you." It sends a rush of anger through Frank, and Gerard, sensing the change, sits on the edge of the bed, hands inches away from reaching out for Frank. "Frankie, please, wait," he says, and Frank tries to calm himself, grits his teeth. "But it wasn't the whole truth. If I told you - " he says, and then a physical pain seems to wrack his body. "Everything would change. And it's been so hard, so difficult not to, I've wanted too, but I've been scared, and - and then this thing with Mikey and Pete - "

Frank's still not really sure what Mikey and Pete have to do with Gerard's secret or why he can't tell Frank, unless Mikey, too, is something that Gerard's been keeping from him for his own protection.

"I'm sorry I've been making you sick," Gerard says.

"You didn't mean to make me sick," Frank surprises himself by saying, it’s not the argument he's been forming in his mind. "You're trying to make me better."

"I'm changing you," Gerard says miserably, and then kind of falls face-first into the comforter.

"Gee, come on, what the hell are you talking about," Frank says. He's tugging at Frank's shoulders but Gerard is still mumbling into the mattress.

"You and Mikey and fucking Wentz and I thought it was just about me, but Alicia was right, it spreads out from me, whether I want it to or not."

"Gerard, what - " Frank says, but then he's hit with a coughing fit. Gerard sits up so quickly Frank thinks he's going to fall right off the bed, and then he coughs his way back out of it. Gerard's looking at him, so miserable and concerned that Frank just reaches forward and presses his lips to Gerard's.

It's amazing how much he didn't realize he was holding back. He feels the moment they shared in the weird room in the basement rushing back to him, the way Gerard gasped as Frank touched him, drank from him. How much he wanted Gerard, wanted to be touching him. How wrong he'd felt dancing around him like this, shutting him out. It was like everything he'd been holding back, every need, was pouring out through this kiss.

"Frank," Gerard says, breathless, as Frank traces the shell of his ear, nibbles his earlobe, kisses his jaw. Gerard is letting Frank do everything he wants, giving Frank everything. As though Gerard hears Frank's thoughts, he says, "Can we - do you want to - " the rest of the sentence is lost in a gasp as Frank licks a long stripe from his ear to his collarbone. "Frank, do you want to fuck me?"

It's rushed and breathy and Frank groans into Gerard's shoulder.

"Yeah?" Gerard says. "I'd be so good for you tonight."

"Yeah," Frank says, climbing on top of Gerard, straddling him, kissing him hard and deep. It's quickly gone from the slow, teasing Frank was doing to this urgent, heated connection. Gerard is looking up at Frank, eyes wide and dark. "Yeah," Frank says again, and then there's a rush of them taking their clothes off, hands fumbling, shaky and hurried and then they're skin to skin. Gerard's starting to whine, and, oh, Frank wants, he wants everything. He reaches for the jar in Gerard's drawer, slicks his fingers, Gerard gasping, wordless, waiting.

Frank fingers him open, slow at first, but then faster, because Gerard's panting, begging, heels digging into the bed, hands in the comforter.

"You like that?" Frank asks, as Gerard bears down, trying to get his fingers deeper. "You want more?" Gerard nods and groans.

Frank wants more, too, though, and he licks down the middle of Gerard's chest. Gerard stills and then arches against Frank. It's risky, Frank knows, but he also feels like, if Gerard isn't going to explain, he deserves at least this. Before he gives time for Gerard to anticipate it, he licks across the scar. Gerard whines high in his throat, arches up against Frank's mouth.

"Can I?" Frank says, mouth still hovering over the scar. Gerard is staring at him, wide-eyed, a little scared.

Then Gerard's hands at the back of Frank's head and he's guiding Frank's mouth to the scar. He gasps as he's doing it, before Frank's even touched him, his fingers flexing against Frank's head. Frank licks again and Gerard starts to tremble.

"You're sure it doesn't hurt?" Frank says.

"No, Frank, it doesn't hurt at all." He's actually tugging Frank's head, trying to get him back to the spot. It makes Frank desperately turned on, knowing how much Gerard wants him to touch this spot that means so much, that makes him fall apart so much.

"Why?" Frank asks. Why can he touch Gerard like this now? "Why does it make you feel so - " Frank stops to drag his teeth over the scar.

"Because," Gerard gasps, rocking against Frank, each breath a needy sound as Frank licks and scrapes his teeth across the spot. "Because I brought you back to life."

Frank can't wait any longer. He pulls out his fingers, lines himself up, and sinks in, slower than he wants, but Gerard makes this gorgeous sound low in his throat and Frank shoves the rest of the way in. Frank's out of his head with the feeling, with the way Gerard's bending and arching toward him, with how he's leaking all over Frank's stomach, the wet tip of his cock brushing Frank's hip each time he thrusts forward.

"Gonna come for me?" Frank pants in Gerard's ear and Gerard arches and grabs at Frank's back, tucking his heel against Frank's ass, urging him forward, deeper.

"Do anything for you, Frankie," Gerard gasps and it's too much, Frank's not going to be able to last, so he fists Gerard's cock in time with his thrusts until Gerard's moaning, deep, desperate, coming with a long drawn out groan, Frank just as loud barely seconds later, thrusting short and shallow and coming, mouth wet and open against Gerard's shoulder.

Frank's exhausted, eyes heavy and limbs slow, but there's no need to worry, because Gerard's stroking his neck the way he used to, pressing light kisses to Frank's mouth. He knows he can stay. He knows it's ok. They arrange themselves so Frank's leaning, eyes barely open, in the crook of Gerard's arm. He knows there are things he should be doing, cleaning them up, but he's not moving, not after what's happened. He's not leaving Gerard's side, not even going to give himself the chance to mess this up. Gerard's tracing gentle unknown patterns across Frank's chest, and Frank's smiling at each touch. Gerard's fingers slide over the expanse of Frank's chest where his scar used to be and his fingers stutter and stop.

"Meant to tell you," Frank says, voice thick with the sleepiness that's wrapping inexorably around him.

"It's been a while now?" Gerard whispers back, fingers still tracing over the bare skin.

"Since the ball," Frank says. "Then you were arrested and then we were....fighting," Frank winces at the last word, as though bringing it up is going to make it start again.

"Shhhh, Frankie, it's ok," Gerard says, kissing his forehead, stroking his hair. "I'm going to make it all ok."

It's the last thing he hears before he's asleep, and in the morning, it seems like just another reassurance, especially when Gerard is smiling sleepily at him when he wakes, their bodies still intertwined.  
Finally, hours later, when it feels like they've re-learned each other's bodies, the incessant door chiming finally breaks into Frank's pleasant drowsing. "Dewees," he shouts. "Dewees, that's the door chime." He doesn't hear anything and then the door chimes again. "Dewees what the fuck?" Gerard sits up and starts to pull on his clothes. "I don't know where Dewees is," Frank says. The door chimes again. "I'll go get it," Frank says starting to extract himself from the covers

"No, let me," Gerard says, and before Frank can protest, Gerard is up and heading downstairs.

Dewees, man, what the fuck," Frank says and then it’s quiet. "Gerard?" Frank dresses hurriedly and stumbles down the stairs. "Who is it?" The hallway is empty.

"Gerard?" he calls. Frank jerks back the second he rounds the corner to the foyer. The door is wide open, the sun curtain yanked back, sunlight spilling across the carpet. He looks and the edge where the sun caught his arm has left a sear across his hand.

"Dewees, goddamn it," Frank shouts, backing up, his eyes still on the sun, reluctant to turn his back as though it could catch up to him. "Gerard? Schechter!"

"Why are you shouting?" Schechter appears at the opposite end of the hall, then runs when he sees the sun curtain pulled back.

He yanks it closed a few feet from it, and Frank hears the door slam as well.

"What the fuck," Schechter says. "Who left the door open like that?"

"Gerard," Frank says.

"What the fuck," Schechter says again, knocking him back. "It's 4 in the afternoon," he says. "Stay out of the sun. Why did Gerard leave the door open?"

"He went to answer the door," Frank says. Schechter looks at him and then slips behind the sun curtain, and Frank hears the door.

"Dewees, for the love of Christ," Frank says, and Dewees comes shambling down the stairs.

"What are you shouting about?"

"Go outside and look for Gerard," Frank says.

"Why?" Dewees says, though he's already heading for the door. "Why are you even awake?"

Schechter comes back in before Dewees makes it to the door. As soon as Dewees sees Schechter, he dashes into the coat closet.

"He's not out there," Schechter says tersely. "Why was he answering the door?"

"Someone was ringing the bell very insistently. We were…in bed," Frank says. "He got dressed first."

"And where was the zombie?" Schechter says.

"Fucking answer him," Frank says.

"Upstairs cleaning the xylophone," Dewees says from the coat closet. "I didn't hear the chime, all I heard was Frankie cursing my name."

"Gerard," Schechter says, low, but he's clearly doing his disembodied voice thing. "Gerard? Let me see your hand," Schechter says, quieter, to Frank.

"It's nothing," Frank says. Schechter demands to look at it anyway. "He's not here," Frank says abruptly. "I thought it was the sun, but I can't - I'd know if he was here and he's not."

"How could he get far enough away in five minutes that you can't hear him?"

"Is he in that room?" Frank says, the thought just occurring to him. "The one we got locked in?"

"No," Schechter says quickly.

Frank closes his eyes. He listens. All he hears is the sound of the day.

"I'm going out to look for him," Schechter says. "This is a bad day for him to have wandered off. And I'll try to get ahold of Mikey. You stay here until sundown, you promise me."

"Yes," Frank says quietly.

"Promise me," Schechter says, right up in Frank's face.

"Come back at sundown and take me with you."

"Fine," Schechter says and then he's gone.  
Frank's freaking out about having to stay in one place, but he can feel the hot danger of the sun lurking outside. He should get in his coffin, but he can't. He just has to wait.

"Frank?" Patrick says, and Frank startles. He's been staring at nothing and he didn't even hear Patrick come in. "Are you ok? I was over at Greta's and we thought we heard shouting."

"Gerard's gone," Frank says. "I can't find him, and Schechter can't find Mikey and – "

"Woah, hey," Greta says. "Slow down. What do you mean, he's gone?"

"I think someone took him," Frank says, and voicing the fear aloud is even worse than he thought it would be.

"Why do you think someone took Gerard?" Greta asks.

"He was just gone so suddenly. He answered the door and then was just – gone." Schechter's reaction hadn't done anything to reassure him. "Schechter said it was a bad day."

"What's today?" Patrick says. "Why's today different?"

"It's the winter solstice," Greta says. "Could that be it?"

"I don't know," Frank says.

"How about this," Greta says, "Patrick and I will go out and look for him, too. Schechter's out there now?" She closes her eyes and seems to answer her own question.

"We'll be back," Patrick says.

Frank actually feels worse when they're gone, because now he's even more useless. "Dewees," he says, and Dewees reappears from where he's been hiding in the coat closet. "Can you take a message to Jamia for me?"

"Yeah, Frankie, I can," Dewees says, and Frank hurries to scribble a note for Dewees, asking if Jamia can just come over.

Jamia comes twenty minutes later, and not alone, but with Lindsey in tow. "Dewees told me what happened," Jamia says.

"Is there anything we can do?"

"You can make sunset come faster," Frank says. "If I could just go out there, I could find him, I know I can hear him better than – " he stops. "Do you know how to get a message to Fairy? That's where I think Mikey went, but Schechter can't find him, either, and I don't know if that's Fairy or – "

"Sure," Lindsey says. "I can do that."

Jamia just hugs Frank, and he doesn't bother to hide how he clings to her.  
Schechter appears, true to his word at just after sunset. He looks harried, and he barely nods at the presence of the Governor. "He's nowhere," Schechter says. "I've searched the grounds, I've searched town, I've been to anyplace that might be connected to the cases he was working on. I've called Bob, Ray, and Brendon." he says, "But I can't get ahold of Pete Wentz."

"We should go look- " Frank says.

"Fine," Schechter says, and he all but hauls Frank out the door.

"We'll stay here," Jamia says, "Incase he or Mikey come back first."

Schechter's quiet as he lets Frank lead them, first over the grounds of the Mansion, then across into the adjoining neighborhood. They walk for hours, or maybe it just feels like hours to Frank, and he doesn't hear a thing that could possibly be Gerard.

"Why did you say it was a bad day?" Frank asks. "Is it because it's the solstice?"

"Yes," Schechter says.

"Does it mean something?"

"It could mean a lot of things," is all Schechter says.

"Don't fucking bullshit me, Schechter."

Schechter doesn't say anything else.

They meet up with Bob and Ray as they're passing the far edge of the Lazarra grounds, and then with Brendon by the Daylighter border, Greta and Patrick as they circle back by the Mansion, and then Jamia and Lindsey and Dewees as they're coming up to the east end of town.

"I don't understand why I can't hear him," Frank says. No one seems to know what to say.

"This is not the east end of town," Bob says into the silence.

"What?" Frank says. "I know this is - "

"It's not," Bob says. "The east side of Holly Street has the Blind Order box between two oak trees."

Frank looks. There's a black box with a blind eye under a lantern.

Everyone looks at it for a long moment. Bob breaks off an iron spoke from the front gate of the house on the right and Frank winces in sympathy, but Bob acts if he just snapped a twig. Bob walks over to the black box, and without hesitating, swings the bar at it. Frank flinches, but instead of the crash he's expecting, the bar soars through the box as if it isn't there at all.

"I can't believe I missed this," Schechter says.

"What?" Frank says.

"It's a glamour," Greta says. "We haven't been where we think we have."

"We need to find out where we actually are," Schechter says. "It's close to dawn," he adds. "You need to go back inside."

"No," Frank says. "I can wait another hour."

"Gerard would kill me if - "

Frank hears something, then, something he's sure is Gerard, and he takes off running after the sound, Schechter swearing and running after him.

Frank's tearing through the brush, thorns and tangling things catching at his shoes, at the cuffs of his pants before he even realizes he's going deeper into the woods. He can feel his clothes ripping and it doesn't matter, he can feel a dozen tiny cuts along his hands and face as sharp vines and branches reach to slow him down because he's an intruder and he doesn't belong here.

Frank's never been in this part of the forest. It's at the edge of the Midnighter community, right on the edge of the Fairy enclave, and it's not the sort of place you go unless you have a reason, and it's usually not a _good_ reason. The ground is thick with brush, the trunks of trees covered in creeping vines, the sky obscured by a canopy of trees so thick it's like the branches have linked fingers and joined hands. It's a kind of darkness Frank isn't familiar with, can't see his way through; it's a wild darkness, overrun and hiding all sorts of secrets.

"Frank, stop for a second," Schechter shouts, and Frank slows down but doesn't stop. "Frank, I mean it," Schechter says and Frank finally slows. "Greta was just behind me, and I can't see her."

"Did she get lost?" Frank says.

"Bob was right behind her. We should still be able to see the street, we're not deep enough. There's something more than a glamour going on here."

Frank can hear the rustle of leaves, twigs cracking, branches breaking. The sound keeps going in and out, but he can still hear it. He's imagining Gerard just standing here, still as a tree trunk, waiting for them. He starts to run again, faster and faster until he hits a clearing. Schechter's got his hand's on Frank's shoulders a second later, saying, "Stay here, don't move."

The clearing is a near perfect circle, too perfect to be natural, or at least not magical. Instead of brush, the ground is soft, untrodden dirt, a few leaves and twigs. It's lighter here, the canopy of the trees revealing larger bits of sky. In the middle of the circle is a fallen branch.

"Seriously, don't move," Schechter says.

Schechter takes two steps forward into the clearing, and the air fills with static. Frank feels like all the breath is being drawn out of him. There's a snap like lightning, and Schechter holds his other hand out into the middle of the circle, and very slowly, like a wave of water peeling back over the shore, the clearing shimmers. The dirt is darker, symbols Frank's never seen before drawn into the mould. It looks almost like the mirror image of someone's cursive handwriting. The air gains more charge, and Frank can't tell if that's Schechter's doing or not. And then it doesn't matter, because instead of the fallen branch, in the middle of the clearing is a stone altar. Tied to the altar is Gerard.

"Gee, no," Frank says as he's rushing forward.

"I said stay still," Schechter says, and though it's agony, Frank does as he's told. He watches as Schechter steps toward the altar very cautiously, like the ground might give way any minute. Schechter holds his hand over Gerard. When Schechter doesn't immediately say anything, Frank rushes forward. Gerard is on the altar and there's blood everywhere and he's not moving and Frank can't hear him.

Schechter sinks down, on his hands and knees, presses his face into the dirt.

Frank stumbles forward, breaking the ring of symbols. He stops just far enough to reach out and touch the stone, touch Gerard, but he doesn't. Thick ropes around his chest, huge, drawn under the rough hewn stone. His hands at his sides, robes around his wrists, ropes around his feet at the ankles. Blood is dripping from the middle of the altar. Frank can't hear Gerard.

"No," Frank says. He's aware of people moving around behind him, of Schechter still on the ground, but he can't think, he can't -

Gerard's jacket is still on, and Frank remembers his hands over what's now a torn shirt, ripped open along his chest, blood in the shirt fabric, blood on the ropes, the legs of his pants shredded. Blood in his hair. His eyes closed. His face pale. Frank can see the scar on his chest from the Trading, a small raised line over his heart.

Frank can't hear him. Frank can't hear his heartbeat, can't hear his breathing, can't hear -

He's dizzy and sick, screaming and making no sound, and his neck is burning hot, his face and hands crackling as though he's holding them over a fire. Frank tears his eyes away from Gerard to look up at the sky, though he already knows. The sun is creeping up at the horizon, filtering in through the trees, falling on Gerard and the stone altar, making it pink and yellow and colder against the coming warmth.

Bob's suddenly behind Frank, and he's got his arms around his chest, under Frank's arms, holding him tight and lifting.

"No, put me down," Frank says. Bob's dragging him away, hoisting Frank in the air. "What are you - just let me - "

"It's dawn, you asshole," Bob says, "I'm bringing you inside."

"No," Frank struggles, kicking. "Fuck you, I need to - if he's - "

Frank gets an elbow into Bob's side, following by a sharp kick at Bob's shin, and Bob drops him. Frank rushes back to the altar. "Gerard, please - " he says, touching his hand to Gerard's chest, just above the ropes. He's cold. When Frank looks at his hand, it's sticky with blood. There's a sharp smack, so loud behind him that it takes him a moment to realize something's connected with the back of his head. He has time to turn and see Bob, drawing back his closed fist, and then he's falling down onto the ground.  


>  **Excerpt from the Summary of the Way Mansion architecture**
> 
> The grounds are composed of seven outbuildings, one carriage house, two gazebos, a maze, and a stable, and several infrequently used servant cottages. The greenhouse covers the majority of the east wall of the main dwelling, and has had two additions built onto it since it was first constructed.
> 
> All the outbuildings are connected by stone paths in the same pattern and materials of the main house, in a way that indicates that they were either created at the same time or by the same architect.25
> 
> Notable magical features include the carriage building, which is aligned with the four cardinal directions, and the greenhouse, which channels magic as though through a root system.
> 
>   
> 25 See page 23 of attached Familial Persons of Interest, part of which has been inked into Greta’s hand. A print of her hand is included. 

  
Frank wakes up in his coffin. His skin is tingling; he's been pretty badly burned. He's starving for blood, but he has to see - he stumbles out of his coffin, falls twice in his room, barely navigates his way down the stairs without tripping - there's no one in the foyer, no one in hall -

Bob catches him coming around the hall. "No - " he says. "Don't go down there, drink first - "

"No - " Frank says, pushes, and Bob pushes back. Frank falls to the floor.

"I'll hold you down and make you drink from me if you won't - "

"Is he downstairs? Is he ok? Is Gerard ok?"

Bob doesn't say anything.

"Fine, if you're not going to tell me - " Frank tries to stand and succeeds in pushing Bob away, but Frank's back on the floor a second later. Bob holds up his hands, abdicating responsibility.

"Stay still, Iero," Schechter's disembodied voice says.

"Let me go," Frank says.

"Drink something and I will," Schechter says.

"Fine," Frank says, and he feels Schechter's hold on him relax enough to let him sit. Bob hands him a bag of blood, which he drinks, too quickly, he knows, and gives himself away.

He hands the empty bag to Bob and says, "I want to see him."

Once again, Bob says nothing, but he stands back, lets Frank out of the room. There's no one around. He rushes to the sitting room, to the library, to Gerard's bedroom. Bob is shadowing him.

"Iero, stop fucking moving for a minute," Schechter's disembodied voice says, and when Frank stops, he blinks once and is suddenly down in a hall he's only ever seen once. Bob is just a few steps behind him.

This is the room he and Gerard were locked in.

"This is the Way winter tomb," Schechter says, not the disembodied voice, just the echo, solemn and clipped.

"It's not winter yet," Frank says as steps inside. Bob doesn't follow.

There's a lit torch on the wall and the flame is casting weird, swirling shadows, flickering from some breeze Frank can't feel.

"What - " Frank says and stops, because the empty stone dais now is draped with a white sheet, spilling over the edges of the stone, and there's a body on -

Frank falls, and Schechter's there, lifting him up.

"I'm sorry," Schechter says.

"He's not - " Frank says, moving around the dais. He pulls back the sheet. Gerard's mouth is shut tight, his eyes closed, his hair spilling out across the stone.

"He's gone, Frank," Schechter says. "He was dead before we got there."

Frank doesn't remember much about what happens next, except that he feels Gerard's cold skin under his fingers, and the sheet, and the stone, and then he tastes blood, tries to refuse, tries keeping his eyes open as Bob slides the lid over Frank’s coffin and then just wishes himself to sleep with sheer force of will.

"Where's Mikey?" Frank says, the next time he wakes up. He's sliding his coffin lid open, and it's not Schechter or Bob who's there, but Jamia.

"Oh, sweetie," she says, and hugs him, and then gives him a bag of blood.

"No - " he says, but she shakes her head. "I need to talk to Schechter."

"You can't," Jamia says,

"Why - "

"Not now, sweetie, ok, just drink," she says. And Frank just listens, because there's something reassuring about being told what to do.

"What's - " He doesn't even know what he's asking.

"Save your questions, you don't want to ask me anyway," she says. "I'm sorry," she says, and hugs him, and Frank feels awkward, because he feels nothing, and then, "Come on, they're waiting downstairs for you."

Bob is in the sitting room, with Inspector Toro's hand on his knee. Lindsey is bandaging Greta's arm from some injury Frank can't see. Dewees is lurking in the hall, scared, likely, by all the injured people. Brendon is pacing.

"I'm not waiting," Brendon says. "This is a declaration of war, it's nothing else."

"Brendon," Lindsey says, "Whoever did this, they mean to bargain."

"I don't bargain," Brendon says darkly.

Bob clears his throat and they all look up at Frank. From the expressions on their faces, he must look terrible. "I'm fine," he says, before anyone asks. Jamia takes a seat next to Lindsey. Brendon continues his pacing.

"Someone tell me," Frank says. "What's happening?"

No one wants to talk. Lindsey checks Greta's bandages one more time before she says, "Gerard was killed in a ritual. He is not, as the power of the ritual has made clear, merely a Daylighter."

"What does that mean, a ritual?" Frank says. "And where the hell is Schechter?"

Greta chokes on a breath, and then tugs her hand way from Lindsey. "Schechter's gone into seclusion."

"What?" Frank asks. "He can't."

"He can't help it," Greta says. She holds up her hand. Blood's seeping through the bandages already. "He can't control his magic."

"Who killed Gerard?" Frank asks. A shudder passes through everyone in the room.

"Whoever it was is behind the Fairy blockade now," Bob says. "The magic of the ritual closed off the entire Fairy quarter. No one can come in or out."

"Mikey's there," Frank says, and Brendon slams his fist so hard into the coffee table it shatters into splinters.  
Patrick finally gets a lead on where Pete is, and because Frank doesn't know what else to do with himself, he goes with Patrick to the edge of the Fairy blockade. Pete's standing at the edge of the woods, leaning with his fists on a tree. Or that's what it seems like at first, but when they get closer, Frank sees that Pete's leaning on an invisible barrier. As if he was just pausing to rest, Pete starts banging on the barrier, alternating fists and open palms. His shoulders are tense and his arms heavy, and Frank realizes the shadow he thought he saw on Pete's hands is actually blood. He's been banging so hard and so long that his hands are torn up, either from the magic of the barrier or he's been pounding on the bluntness long enough that he's turned his hands raw. Patrick notices the moment Frank does and rushes forward, trying to pull Pete's hands away.

"Stop it, Pete, stop," Patrick pleads.

"You motherfucker, open up," Pete screams. His voice is hoarse. Frank wonders how many of the same calls have bounced off the barrier. He wonders if any of Pete's shouts, his pounding, is even getting through.

"Pete, come on, that's enough," Patrick says, voice gentle, getting his hands around Pete's wrists. Pete keeps banging, so he's banging on Patrick's chest. Blood gets on Patrick's shirt and Pete winces, as if realizing for the first time he's supposed to feel pain.

"They can't close off Fairy," Pete shouts. "They have to know what it will do. You have to know," Pete shouts, and Patrick has to struggle to keep a hold on Pete's wrists.

"Pete," Patrick says, very calm.

"Mikey's in there," Pete says.

"I know," Patrick says. "Come on, let's get you back to the house."

"Patrick," Pete says, as though a fog is clearing. "What are you doing out here?"

"Looking for you," Patrick says. "You weren't at Decaydance, and no one had seen you at the Way Mansion."

Frank watches the unspoken moment pass between them.

"I should have been there," Pete says. "I almost was. I was going to meet Mikey and Alicia after sunset."

"So you're trying to bang your way in?" Patrick says. "Come on, Frank and I will help get you to Decaydance."

"Frank," Pete says abruptly. "I'm sorry."

Frank shrugs it off, because if he says anything wrong, Pete's going to think he's actually apologizing for some part he’s played. "You want me to call Decaydance to send a carriage?"

Pete shakes his head. "We can walk, I'm fine."

Patrick sighs, like he and Pete have a different definition of fine. It's a testament to how fucked they really are that no one stops them to see what's happened to Pete. Normally the evening news would be all over Pete Wentz with bloodied hands, waiting to see if there was a fight, or it was a joke. But everyone is concerned with their own issues, earth creatures already feeling the gaping tear of Fairy being closed off, Clan officials on the streets trying to answer the many questions that no one has an answer to yet. Even Daylighters from the liminal neighborhoods are coming out in their bathrobes with candles, trying to see what's happened that has everyone stirred up, the ones with better instincts woken simply by the change in the air, the shift of magic.

There's a man Frank doesn't recognize standing at the door to Decaydance, but Pete does, and as soon as he sees him, rushes forward, out of Patrick's reach.

"What are you doing here, Alex, are you in trouble?"

The kid holds out an envelope nervously. "I'm delivering a message."

Pete snatches the envelope and the kid's look changes from anxious to alarmed when he notices Pete's bloody hands. Pete opens the envelope, reads the paper inside quickly. He takes a step towards the kid. "Since when," Pete says, his voice full with barely restrained fury, "do you deliver messages for the Shallow Believer pack?" The kid doesn't say anything. "You know, I gave you better options than this," Pete says, and throws the paper down on the ground and walks off toward the front doors.

Patrick bends down to pick up the paper. He reads it quickly. "Patrick," the kid says. "Could you at least - "

"Get out of here," Patrick says sharply. He runs without looking and smacks into Frank, becomes even more terrified, and scurries off.

"What was that - " Frank tries to ask, but Patrick's following Pete inside and Frank follows, too.

"Pete, you should respond," Patrick says.

"What - " Frank says and Patrick hands Frank the note, which looks more dramatic now that it has two sets of bloody fingerprints all over it. All it says is, "This community does not belong to you." Frank thinks of what Pete said to the messenger.

"I'm not responding," Pete says, as though he detests the word. "I don't respond to threats."

A moment later, something crashes through the front window. It looks to Frank like a bouquet of flowers in a miniature Molotov cocktail. Patrick immediately tosses a jug of water onto it. It smolders slightly on the carpet and then burns itself out, and the flowers spill out into the carpet.  
Pete bends to the flowers and picks one up. His laugh is hollow.

"This," he says to Frank, who feels like he's the only one who has no idea what's going on. "Is dogrose."

Frank flinches. It's one of the plants they told him to stay away when he was first turned, and he's never wanted to get close enough to tell if it was true.

"This was laced in my wounds at the Clan Protest assault incident."

"Are they trying to claim responsibility for that?" Frank asks.

"They wish it had been them," Pete says. "Patrick, call Travie and Ash. We need to get a handle on this before it gets out of control."

Frank already feels like everything is out of control. He picks up one of the dogrose flowers. it's one of the things Gerard never keeps in the garden, even though being near it won't hurt Frank. He remembers Gerard had Dewees de-weed Greta's garden of it once Schechter had moved her house.

Decaydance is a flurry of hushed voices springing into action, so Frank sneaks out. He knows he should try and help; but he finds he doesn't have the energy. He walks back to the Way Mansion. Another floral bouquet bomb ignites a trash can across the street, and several people run out of their houses, coming to see the commotion. Frank hurries home.

At the door, he finds Greta writing symbols around the frame of the door.

"What are those?" Frank says.

"My vain attempt at protection," Greta says. "Would it have killed Brian to teach me a way to stabilize the house on the off chance he was asleep when some sort of crisis happened, or you know, he became completely magically indisposed? Oh my god, what happened to you?" Greta says, stepping down from the chair, her eyes on Frank's shirt, which he realizes belatedly, is full of bloody smears.

"It's not my blood," Frank says.

"That is less than reassuring," Greta says. "Dewees, come here."

Dewees appears and looks at Frank. "Did you get into another bar fight, Frankie?"

"Another bar fight?" Greta says.

"I was with Patrick," Frank says.

"You got into a bar fight with Patrick?" Greta says. "Brian, if you can hear me, I'm keeping count of the really important things you didn't tell me and you'll pay for all of them later."

"We found Pete pounding at the Fairy blockade. He'd been with Mikey just before," Frank says, and the idea of Mikey stuck behind the barrier threatens to overwhelm him so he just keeps talking. "And then back at Decaydance, Pete got a threat from the Shallow Believer werewolf faction."

"That's ridiculous," Greta says. "What are they thinking? Just because Fairy is out of reach doesn't mean the whole Midnighter establishment is compromised."

"Unless they're the ones who closed it off," Frank says.

"They don't have that kind of power," Greta says.

"Then who does?" Frank says. "Who would do this?" He realizes how he must sound when both Dewees and Greta take a step forward. "I'm going to go clean up," Frank says.

"Run a bath for him," Greta says.

"No," Frank says. "Just some hot water."

"And a new shirt," Greta says gently.  
Frank's just laying there in his coffin, the lid propped open, staring at the patterns of the ceiling. Greta hovers at the door, and Bob comes in and walks three times around Frank's coffin and leaves, Pete lurks in the corner like he's being punished. Frank thinks they might even be on a schedule, which means they're watching him, which means he needs to start acting normally soon because he doesn't need people to care for him, especially not with the turmoil he saw going on outside.

Brendon comes in, and Frank manages to sit up. Brendon looks startled, but refrains from saying anything one way or the other, about what everyone thinks of the fact that he's just been lying there for hours, maybe days.

"I issued a statement," Brendon says, "That we're not having any sort of memorial, not while Mikey is still on the other side of the Blockade. People have been leaving plants," he says. "Flowers and stuff, all in pots, though a couple of creepy dried roses from a few people of that tradition. Greta's been checking them all for curses."

Frank nods. He's glad they're not doing anything - formal. He couldn't handle it, without Mikey....."How long has it - " Frank starts. His voice is uneven, rough from either shouting before or not speaking for so long after.

"It's been 37 hours since anyone heard anything from the other side of the blockade. We're in a Midnighter cycle now, if you wanted to try and reset your clock."

Frank does. He stands up, stands in the middle of the room and closes his eyes. He can feel it then, the thing that's wrong.

"It's not - "

"I know," Brendon says. "It's been like that since..." He doesn't have to say since when. It makes sense that someone's wrong with Gerard's house when he's - and when Mikey is -Frank steadies himself with a hand on his coffin. "You can lie back down."

"I have to adjust," Frank says. It feels like he's saying something else.

Brendon says, quietly, "I'll be downstairs for another couple of hours. Your friend Dewees has been acting odd, we think the house is messing with him. I can send Spencer up if you need anything."

Frank thinks that once again someone is misunderstanding how odd is normal for Dewees.  
Frank sneaks out when Brendon falls asleep reading an enormous law text, and he heads straight for the edge of the Blockade.

A familiar woman is stringing myrtle along the barrier, efficiently and calmly, decorating something terrible to make it easier to bear.

"Oh," Frank says. It takes him longer than it should to realize who it is, but then she's looping back around with the chain of myrtle. She looks up and smiles at him, "Hi Donna," he says quietly. He wonders how long she's been waiting out here, if, like Pete, she tried to break down the barrier with her bare hands to get to Mikey.

She hugs him, and he tries to pull away after what he feels like is the polite amount of time but she holds him close. It's the first time someone's really touched him in days. She seems to know and hangs on a few minutes longer.

"How are you doing, sweetie? I came by the house but it wasn't a good time."

"I'm sorry," Frank says, with a stupid loss of control. "I'm sorry he's gone."

"Oh, I am too, sweetie," she says. "But I think Michael's in more trouble at the moment."

It's a strange way of looking at it, but Frank thinks that, all things considered, yeah, Mikey is in more trouble.

"I think he's there with Alicia," Frank says. "Do you know her? She's pretty powerful in Fairy."

"Oh," Donna says, sounding distracted. "Interesting. Gerard hadn't said."

"Oh, they're not dating," Frank says quickly, and then he kind of backpedals because he's not sure that's true.

"A Fairy, hmmm, what was her name? Alicia?" Donna asks. "Oh, don't look at me like that, Frank, I can hardly meddle if he's stuck behind a magical barrier."

"That's not what I've heard," Frank says, and then covers his mouth in shock. But Donna laughs.

"Oh, Frank," Donna says. "You're so good for Gerard."

"I don't know what I was," Frank says. "I thought - I mean I tried - "

Donna looks at him, as though looking for something hidden underneath his skin. Frank smells myrtle everywhere. "Did Gerard ever tell you much about his grandmother?"

Frank shakes his head. Other than a few fond stories and what he's heard from Mikey, Frank doesn't really know anything about her.

"Typical," Donna says. "Raise a boy with a mouth like he has, couldn't shut him up half the time. And still he leaves out the important things. I'm glad he at least found you first," Donna says. "Are you going to stay for the midnight vigil?"

"Probably not," Frank says. "Sorry."

"Stop being sorry," Donna says. "You've given me a lot of good news today." She hugs him again, and then tucks a Lily of the Valley into his jacket. "Get home safe," she says.

Frank can't help but think that he doesn't know Donna Way at all.  
Frank goes into the greenhouse as soon as he gets home, because the smell of myrtle is still everywhere around him. He takes a deep breath before he steps over the threshold and he flinches when the door clicks shut behind him. After the first moment of panic subsides, Frank settles himself and looks around. No one's been in here for days and it shows. Many of the plants are in need of water or food, light or song, and Frank goes around the tables trying to figure it out from dead reckoning until he remembers Gerard's journal. He's peeked at it once while Gerard was in prison, but he got out before Frank needed to do more than turn on a few mist sprayers. It was good, too, Frank was too frightened to go into the greenhouse then. It’s different now. And if for some reason he ends up locked in when the sun comes up, well, it's not like it will really matter all that much if that was how this life ended.

He holds his hand over the journal for a moment, not wanting to open it. It's not as though it's a secret diary. It's just a journal, leather cover, thick paper, but it's filled with Gerard's drawings, his sketches of plant leaves and flowers, stems and foliage, and his handwriting, messy and familiar, inked into every page. It's just that it's a part of Gerard that Frank's never had a good look at. In the few times he's been in the greenhouse with Gerard - when they weren't kissing each other senseless pressed up on one of the tables - he's seen Gerard write slow, meticulous notes, or sketch something, looking up at the plant, lost in the contemplation until he glanced at Frank, grinned and Frank knew that Gerard had never for a moment forgotten he was there.

Gerard's idea of instructions relied on the power of deduction, leads that Frank has to string together before he can follow them, but it will help Frank tell which plant prefers French, which doesn't get watered until the quarter moon. He pages through the book, looking at sun/shade/starlight/moonlight ratios for all the plants, hybrid growth charts, pollination schedules, lists of plants that had to be submerged in water every 2 weeks, or bathed in candlelight.

He takes off his jacket in the humid warmth and finds that the flower that Donna placed there, plucking it out of the pocket and filling a small jar with water. He's not sure what sort of sun a Lily of the Valley needs, and he looks for a moment through the notebook, feeling the strange texture of the paper under his fingers. Flowers like this are considered Daylighter flowers, not night-blooming. He flips open to the front of the book, where there's a title page on which Gerard has written, "A chronological accounting of the plants and flowers in the greenhouse with instructions for their care."

He reads as he walks and finds that the Lily of the Valley is shade-loving, and particularly likes to be kept under a larger tree or shrub. Gerard's notes say that the specimen on the east corner has developed a particular fondness for the Creeping Bark-Curler tree, and so Frank sets his Lily of the Valley on the windowsill next to the other plant, hoping they'll get along. The Creeping Bark-Curler extends a leaf as though to shake hands with the Lily of the Valley, curling around its vase. He'll come out and check on it tomorrow, but he can already tell by the way the flower cutting seems to glow a little that it's happy.

Then he notices there's a ribbon marking the next page after the Lily of the Valley entry, and he opens to the spot and reads Gerard's handwriting under a sketch of a flower with long petals that looks a little sickly, even in the drawing.

>  **Ranunculale's Infirm Anemone** :  
> Second balcony and around the corner from the south exterior door. Midnighter species, one of several in the family of wasting plants.
> 
> Requires a constant light breeze. The petals are like hair and the face of the flower turns up to the wind in careless excitement. Keep it by the windows to the south and keep them cracked if the weather is warm enough; in the winter and on cooler days, it seems to get enough of a breeze from the Waving Pine unless the pine is having a sticky day.
> 
> Predominantly purple but turns paler as it wilts until going completely white. Does not achieve transparency except in rare samples.

It's strange that Gerard would have marked it. Frank wanders over to the plant to see if there's something in particular it needs. It is, in fact, next to the Waving Pine, which looks free of excessive sap. Several of the flowers have started to turn white, and look like they've been left out in the frost, but when Frank touches them, they're not cold, just pale and as ill-looking as Gerard's drawing led him to believe.

"You found some really unusual plants," Frank says aloud, before he realizes that he's talking to Gerard. He bites the inside of his cheek, and watches the ghostly anemones sway back and forth.  
Frank wakes up the next evening, drinks the blood that's on the platter without really thinking. He knows he has to get up. There are things that need cleaning. There are people in the house who need tending. He will absolutely not think about the hole inside his chest that's swallowing up everything. He tries to lift himself above the thoughts he can't stand to think, imagines he's fog over the road in the pre-dawn. He thinks it's because of the fog, swirling around him, surrounding him, wrapping him and blurring everything, that he's starting down the hall to look for Dewees to see if he's kept up the kitchen, when he notices that the house sounds wrong. There's a buzz, sort of, like something humming, like a tuning fork but an odd pitch, and it just keeps going on and on.

"What the hell is that?" Frank asks, to the empty hallway.

Or at least, he thought it was empty, because he startles when Greta says, "It's the Midnighter Emergency Broadcast," she says. "It's been running for 8 hours now. I'm muting it as best I can."

"Why is it broadcasting?"

She gives Frank a an annoyed look, and then softens. "So the Blockade was bad enough, but we didn't realize right away - the balance of Fairy is off."

"What?" Frank says, "I didn't think that was possible." It shouldn't surprise him - endless things he thought weren't possible were happening. Gerard was -

He focuses on Greta's answer. "It's not supposed to, but something's obviously more wrong than we thought if Fairy is both closed off and out of balance."

"So what - what does it mean?" Frank asks.

"It means it's literally out of balance," Greta says. "All of Fairy, all levels, magical, physical, theoretical, it's all tilting one way and then the other, never balancing out. And it's reverberating out."

"I can't feel it," Frank says, "I mean, I can't tell what's Fairy and what's – " What he's lost.

Greta considers, then says, "So, there's this music that comes from Fairy, a different tune when either court is in power. It's always playing in the background, and like other kinds of music, it travels, winds around things, moves and carries."

Dewees comes up the stairs and says, "Frank, get back in your coffin, it's a nightmare out there and I'm not having you wander around in your fragile state."

As it always has, Dewees' harsh teasing calms him, makes him feel almost normal.

"Fuck you, man," Frank says.

Greta stops Dewees with a hand on his shoulder. "What's all over you?" Greta says, and before Dewees can respond, she murmurs something and there's a flash of something that looks like Greta set the air around Dewees on fire.

"Don't – is he ok?" Frank says. "Is he on fire?"

Greta keeps murmuring until all the fire around Dewees is burned off.

"Oh, thank god," Dewees says, though he sounds far away. "Frankie, I'm so sorry," he says, and then immediately Dewees falls to the floor.

"What the hell was that," Frank says. "What did you just do?"

Greta's breathing in sharp and fast. "That's the strongest geis I've ever seen."

"Geis?" Frank says, "You mean like the thing that was on the vampire zombie?"

"The what?" Greta says, and then Greta's having Frank help her drag Dewees' prone body into his room.  
Dewees wakes up two hours later, shouting so plaintively for Frank that Frank drops the linens he's folding and bolts up the stairs to his room. Frank hasn't heard Dewees sound like this since the last time he brought Frank to the hospital before he was turned, when it wasn't clear if he was going to die before they had the chance.

"Frankie, Jesus Christ, Frankie, where are you?" Dewees moans.

"Open your eyes," Frank says, and Dewees does.

Dewees looks miserable. "Call the Blind Order, Frankie," Dewees says. "Call Bob Bryar. Fucking call Brendon, I don't care."

"Dewees, man, what is it? What's wrong? Is it the geis thing Greta took off?"

Dewees buries his face in his hands, then he looks up at Frank and if Frank thought his heart couldn't break anymore, the expression on Dewees' face proves him wrong.

"I've been spying," Dewees says, "On Gerard. On Mikey. On you. My master sent me here to gather information, to find out what made Gerard weak, what - " Dewees stops. "I'm sorry," he says. "Just call them, Frankie, get it over with. I don't want you looking at me any longer."

"Shut the fuck up, man," Frank says. Frank sits down beside Dewees and Dewees tries to get up, and Frank says, "Stop," and he does.

"I was under an obedience spell. I had to do what he said, even when - " Dewees goes quiet. "I tried to get Schechter to see, but he told me to be afraid of him, so - "

"I thought you were just overreacting." Frank says.

"Don't get me wrong, your sorcerer scares the shit out of me, but avoiding him like I did was part of the spell. God, Frankie, I tried to get you to break the spell, to order me to do something that could counter-act it, I thought if I just keep trying but - I couldn't."

"I'm not calling the Blind Order," Frank says.

"Don't be an idiot," Dewees says. "You’re my peer, you can call them."

"No," Frank says. Whatever it is that Dewees is so upset about, he’s been under a curse. Greta's already called her sorcerer friends for help.

"Jesus, Frankie, I can't even tell you who my master is."

"You can," Frank says, “I'll go get Greta."

"No, I mean, I can't, it's part of my contract. I need someone to break it before I can even tell you. I've tried. I'm trying right now and all it's doing is giving me heartburn."

"I'll call Brendon," Frank says, "But not so he can exact justice."

"Frankie," Dewees says, sad and impatient.

"No, fuck you, I'm not killing you," Frank spits out harshly.

"I'm already dead," Dewees says, the hint of a smile on his face, and to his surprise, Frank laughs.  
Brendon shows up with a puzzled look on his face. "Tell me again," he says, to Frank, who sort of throws up his hands. Frank looks pleadingly at Greta.

"He's always been kind of weird, you know?" Greta says, and Brendon nods emphatically. "I mean, magically. And then it was as though something changed when Schechter... when he went into seclusion. I could see something... different about him." Greta hesitates before saying, "Or possibly it was after... Gerard." She looks helplessly at Frank, who lets it wash over him like it's any other sentence, any other fact.

"What does he say about it?" Brendon asks.

"He said he was under a curse from his master," Frank says. "Is that possible? Can his master have cursed him?"

"Depends on who his master is," Brendon says. "Has he said?"

"He says he can't tell us," Frank says. "Why couldn't he tell us?"

Brendon shrugs. "Could be part of his contract. Could be a secondary curse."

They're at the top of the stairs, at Dewees' locked room. Frank undoes the lock and Brendon says, before they open the door, "This is Brendon Urie from the Blind Order."

The door flies open. "Oh, thank fucking god," Dewees says, and holds out his hands as if for restraints. "Frankie won't believe me, but I'm evil."

Brendon looks completely startled. Frank imagines most of the Blind Order contracts don't go quite this way and probably involve more people exclaiming, "I'm innocent."

"In what way are you evil exactly?" Brendon says. "And I don't have any restraints, so put your arms down."

Dewees does immediately, but he looks disappointed about it. "I was sent here to spy, and then to set up traps for the master of the house."

"And you did this of your own volition?"

Dewees laughs. "I'm a zombie, I don't have my own volition."

"Sorry, bad choice of words," Brendon says. "Were your actions part of the contract you consented to."

"Maybe?" Dewees says.

"Did you want to do them?"

"No," Dewees says helplessly. The tone of his voice makes Frank's eyes sting.

"Who is your master?" Brendon asks.

Dewees shakes his head. "I can't tell you."

"Do you recognize me as a member of the Blind Order?"

Frank thinks it's a weird thing for Brendon to say, because Dewees knows him, and then Frank understands the question has another meaning. Brendon's asking if Dewees respects his authority. "Yes," Dewees says.

"And you are bound to the Zombie Hierarchy of Orders? So you understand that my request supersedes any other order, even from your master, even as a part of your contract?"

"Yes," Dewees says.

"Tell me your master’s name."

"I can't," Dewees says.

Brendon considers him. "We need to have someone look at you," Brendon says kindly, the air of Blind Order authority dissipating. "You're bound by some pretty strong magic."

"But you understand I'm evil, right?" Dewees says.

Brendon looks at Frank for help.

"Whatever you say, man," Frank says, and Dewees slumps.

"I'm going to call for a carriage," Brendon says, "We'll take you to one of our secure facilities." Dewees looks pleased. "For examination," Brendon clarifies, and Dewees slumps again.

"I'm locking the door," Frank says.

"Throw away the key," Dewees says.

"Fuck you," Frank says half-heartedly.

Brendon sends Spencer out to deliver messages to the secure facility, to the sorcerer on staff, to a few members of the Blind Order.

"It's a shame we can't contact Schechter," Brendon says. "Your sorcerer would know better than I what to do."

Frank can't agree more. "Do you want some tea, while we're waiting for the carriage?"

Brendon's face softens and he regards Frank for a long, uncomfortable moment. "Frank," Brendon says. "Are you all right?"

Frank shrugs. "I'm fine."

"You're not," Brendon says, "Or else you wouldn't be trying to offer me something to drink."

Frank sits down in the soft armchair of the sitting room. "I don't know what else to do," Frank says.

"You could stop acting like you're a servant in your own house."

Frank swallows the response. This isn't his house. This is Gerard's house, this is Mikey's. This is Schechter's. "I'll try," is what Frank says, and it makes Brendon breath out in a soft, pained sigh.

"That first day," Brendon says, "Hell, that first week, when I woke up to find I'd had a demon bound to me. I was sure this wasn't my life. I'd fallen into some dream state where every horrible thing people told me, the stark Clan Clinic, the tests, the guy who followed me like a shadow, who I could feel tugging at me, at places no one was supposed to be able to feel so deep inside me, I just accepted everything. Every horrible thing, I just nodded and said sure, and went on. But that wasn't acceptance," Brendon says. "I needed to be in my head to accept these things. That was a fugue state."

"You're saying that's what I'm doing," Frank says slowly. "I'm in a fugue state."

Brendon nods. "It's comfortable," he says. "I know. Everything sort of rolls off you, brushes past you. Nothing shakes you. And you can stay there for a while," Brendon says, and he places his hand over Frank's briefly, not like all their other flirting, but gentle, concerned. "But you shouldn't stay there forever."  
Frank finds another ribbon-marked page in Gerard's greenhouse journal when he goes in that night to turn on the star lamps and to prune the needles of the Autumn Evergreen that have turned their seasonal maroon. Gerard has marked the page for a small shrub with delicate clusters of flowers.

>  **Sapin-Dale's Rue** :
> 
> Adjacent to the Raining Lichen beds. Evolved Daylighter species, often prominent in horticulture of transitional zones.
> 
> Prefers constant cloud cover but not full shade. When the seed pods burst, the falling seeds produce a sound reminiscent of a knock on a door.
> 
> Do not inter-pollinate with Eudicot's Remorse, despite their similar stem structure: the resulting strong fragrance is a paralyzing sedative.

Frank walks over the Raining Lichen beds, where there is indeed a thickness to the air that's like cloud cover, and he finds the Rue by holding up the drawing to several similar-looking shrubs, and it takes him a moment because the Rue isn't flowering. He finds it though, and realizes he probably has seen it in the borders of the transition zones, even if he never really pays attention to the plants outside. But this plant looks both hearty and untouchable. Like the ghostly anemone, Frank can't find anything about the plant that might need his particular attention, or anything that would indicate why Gerard might have marked it in the book.

"Hey, so, do you need anything?" he asks the plant, immediately feeling silly. "Gerard must have marked you for something important. He must have been – " but Frank trails off because the idea of Gerard planning something for these plants that will never happen now is too much for Frank to bear thinking about. "I'll come check on you again later, ok?" Frank tells the Rue, and then he circles back to the Infirm Anemone, which still looks exactly as it did earlier in the week. "I wish I knew what Gerard wanted me to do," Frank says, and he means more than with the greenhouse. What is he supposed to do now, without Gerard, without Mikey, without Schechter? What is he supposed to do without even Dewees now? He absently cleans up fallen petals and leaves along one of the long benches, pulling dead leaves from the Shedding Maple like he's seen Gerard do, pinching their stems with his fingers, and then he picks up the broom and starting to sweep. If Brendon is right about the fugue state, if that is what Frank was doing, then he isn't done waiting, and he isn't ready to leave.  
Frank's coming out the greenhouse, setting the broom up on the hook on the wall and wiping his hands free of dirt when Bob rushes past him, so fast he's almost knocked over. "What - " Frank says, but then he just decides to follow Bob. They run down the hall into the main foyer, where there's a bloodied man standing in the door of the sitting room, holding himself up with both hands on the frame. Greta is in front of him, her hands up like she's trying to catch him, except with magic.

"Get out of the way," Bob does, and Greta steps away, but doesn't lower her hands. The man in the doorway is Inspector Toro. His uniform jacket is missing entirely, his dress shirt soaked with blood.

"Victoria's on her way," Greta says, though her voice has an otherworldly sense to it.

"What happened?" Bob demands.

"Werewolves," Ray says, and Frank can feel the chill go through the room. "Was on a flower bomb follow-up - " he says, and tries to reach for something that's obviously in the breast of his jacket.

"I believe I said don't move," Greta says. Ray readjusts him stance.

"There were so many of them, and I tried to tell them I wasn't there to arrest anyone, I just needed to – " Ray winces and falls quiet.

"What are you doing to him?" Bob asks.

"Magic," Greta bites back, and Bob doesn't ask anything else. "There," she says, taking her hands down, "that should help with the pain. Lay him down on the couch until Victoria gets here."

Bob rushes forward and catches a slumping Ray.

"Come on, take off his shirt," Frank says, helping Bob, who seems paralyzed with Ray in his arms as he's laying him on the floor.

"Who did this? Who attacked you?" Bob asks.

"The rogue faction," Ray says. "The Shallow Believers were at the door. There were so many," he says again.

Frank gets the shirt, tacky with blood, peeled open. Cortez has water and towels and his serious face on as he hands them to Frank, holds his hands out for the wet shirt, the towels as they become bloody. He wishes Dewees were here.

Ray's wounds look bad, though Frank's never been good at diagnosing injuries. There's a lot of blood, and the fact that Greta is doing magic to help the pain doesn't put Frank at ease.

"Come on," Bob says, seeming to come back to himself, hoisting Ray up onto the couch. Ray is pale and limp, his hair stringy with blood and dry leaves.

"Does this mean I'll be a werewolf now?" Ray asks in a harsh whisper. "Does this mean I'm part of the rogue faction?"

Bob says, "You don't ever need to think about that faction again."

Victoria comes in then, and gently shoos Frank away. She doesn't bother telling Bob to move from where he's basically holding Ray's head in his lap.

Frank goes to wash up then, and finds, with his hands in the warm water, Ray's blood running down the drain, that it feels like Gerard has been gone forever, so long that Frank can't even imagine what it was like to have him here. He doesn't even recognize this community, where Ray can get attacked like this. They're supposed to be better than this.

So instead of going back to play valet, to give Victoria help, Frank goes back to the greenhouse, and sits on one of the seedling tables, laying his head back on a pile of fresh dirt waiting to be potted, and wonders how long he can stay still before someone finds him.  
Cortez gives him Victoria's report a few hours later, as apparently Frank didn't answer when she knocked on the door to the greenhouse.

"Didn't hear anything," Frank says. Frank's glad that Cortez acts like he doesn't hear Frank's excuse. Along with Victoria's report, Cortez has included a tray of tea and a bag of blood. Frank drinks the blood, and then the tea, and then flips through papers filled with Victoria's handwriting. Most of it is medical jargon that goes over Frank's head, except for the note at the bottom where Victoria has requested they begin the Clan Code paperwork for non-voluntary transition.

Inspector Toro's a werewolf now.

When Frank goes looking, he finds that Ray's been moved to one of the upstairs guest rooms. He's sitting up in bed, and Bob's walking, hands clasped behind his back, in the space between the bed and the door. Ray is watching him, as though the movement calms him.

"How are you feeling?" Frank asks, stepping into the bedroom. Bob pauses his pacing, alert to an intruder, but starts again when he sees that it's Frank.

"Like I should have stayed away from this case," Ray says. His fingers linger over the spot where, under his shirt, Frank knows there are layers of bandages. He stops before he touches it, and pulls his hand away. "I'm a Daylighter, and I never should have forgotten that. I should have stayed away from the werewolves."

"That's not what we're about," Bob says.

"We," Ray says quietly.

Frank feels the way Bob tenses, stills, the sharp current running between him and Ray before he even understands what's just happened.

"We," Bob says, looking Ray clear in the eyes. And Frank's slow to catch up, but he's got it now.

"You're - " Ray says, and Frank was about to say the same thing, but this isn't his conversation. He takes a few steps back, takes the tray by the foot of Ray's bed, and starts to quietly walk back out. "Why didn't you say anything?" Ray finally demands.

Bob seems to straighten up. "It hadn't come up."

"It - " Ray says, and then shakes his head.

"You were scared of werewolves," Bob says. ”But you weren't scared of me. It hadn't come up."

"You thought -" Ray says. “You thought, once I found out, I'd be scared of you, too."

Bob doesn't move. Frank's almost at the door, backing up, his eyes on the floor, like he's the valet again, like he's not even there.

"Bob," Ray says, and something in his voice breaks, and Frank manages to get out the door and down the hall.

He walks and doesn't realize where he's going until he's at the door to Gerard's office. He gets in and lets the tray fall to the floor. Fucking Gerard and his fucking secrets.

Frank sits at Gerard's desk, in Gerard's chair, and he thinks for a minute that it'll be ok, that it’ll feels right, that he'll get some sort of comfort or reassurance, but all that happens is he hears Ray's question echoing, "You thought I'd be scared of you."

He wonders if that's what Gerard thought. If he was that much of an idiot. He crosses his arms and hides his face in the dark space, thinking, if he could just get up, he could turn out the lamp, but he can't seem to move. Gerard has never felt further away.  
Jamia brings Frank tea as he's sitting in the library, looking at nothing.

"Want to go break into someone's apartment?" Jamia says.

Frank actually laughs.

"We could rob a bank," she says. "I always thought that'd be a pretty badass career choice."

"It would work for you," Frank says, "Though I think Lindsey would make a better accomplice."

Jamia grins at him. "You're not sick anymore, you know," Jamia says. "I don't know if you noticed."

He hasn't, and he's sure it shows on his face. "You haven't coughed since…" she says, and she doesn't need to finish her sentence. "You don't feel better?"

"I don't really feel anything," Frank says, and it's balder than he means it to be. He's sure there's a good explanation for it, but it is all tied up with Gerard's blood, and Frank can't handle trying to figure out why. It's not like it really matters.

"Oh, Frankie," Jamia says, and kisses him on the cheek and then takes a book down from the shelves and takes a seat next to him, doing a terrible job of pretending she isn't there to keep him company.  
"What are these?" Ray asks, as Bob holds out a handful of pills and a cup of water the next time Frank walks by the bedroom. He doesn't want to walk past at all, but it's the only way up to the library and he needs to get the linen for Victoria.

"Drugs," Bob says.

"I don't want drugs," Ray says.

"Yes you do," Bob says. Bob holds Ray's look for a long time.

"You mean I'm going to change tonight. It's not even the full moon." Ray's voice is shaky and thin.

"No," Bob says, "It's not. But your first change doesn't happen with the moon, and things are already pretty fucked with Fairy out of balance, so, it's going to be out of sync."

"But you can tell it's going to happen?"

Bob exhales and looks away. "I can," he says.

"Will it be terrible?" Ray says.

"Yeah," Bob says quietly, and Ray closes his eyes tight and swallows down the pills.  
Frank goes to visit Dewees in his holding cell while the Zombie Affairs Office tries to find out the origin of his curse.

"Can we not do the recitation of your crimes today?" Frank says, sitting down on Dewees' bed. It's untouched since the last time Frank was there, since Dewees, when he sleeps, always sleeps on the floor.

"If that's what you want. I thought it might help if - " Dewees, so unlike himself, hesitates and then regroups. "What happened?" Dewees asks.

"Inspector Toro's a werewolf."

"No, he's not, Frankie, they don't let you join the Daylighter police if you're a Midnighter."

"He was attacked. Yesterday."

Dewees makes a few open-mouthed attempts at finding words before he settles on, "That's fucking terrible."

"It's not supposed to happen," Frank says. "There's been three non-voluntary turnings in the community in ten years, I looked it up, and one of them was an accident. And now, it's like, everything is wrong. Werewolves and the Shallow Believers, Fairy won't switch courts, you're in fucking jail - " Frank stops before he gets to the worst of it.

"Maybe we were broken all along," Dewees says.

"We're not," Frank says, "We're not broken." He realizes what it is Dewees is actually saying a moment later. "Fuck you, you're not broken."

"Yeah, I am, Frank, haven't you been paying attention?" There's quiet, and then Dewees says, "I conspired to kill your boyfriend."

Frank breathes out a tired sigh. He doesn't blame Dewees. He really doesn't. "It wasn't you. You were cursed."

"And I'm such a useless fuck that I can't even let anyone know I've been cursed and I have to watch myself do all these terrible things and no one notices."

"Well that's the thing, isn't it?" Frank says, sitting up. "No one noticed. I didn't notice. So if it's your fault, it's my fault, too." He startles when Dewees' reaches out a hand to his face, then kind of playfully slaps his cheek with the back of his hand.

"You're an idiot, Frankie," Dewees says. "Now come on, our conjugal visit time is over."

"That's disgusting, man," Frank says.  
Bob is standing in the middle of the foyer when Frank comes in. The mansion is quiet, with too few heartbeats, except for Inspector Toro, and Schechter, who Frank can feel in a slight, weird way, but he can't tell where he is.

"He sleeping?" Frank asks.

"For now," Bob says. "I sent everyone else away."

"Ok," Frank says.

"You can go, too, stay with Brendon or something," Bob says. "It's going to sound upsetting."

Frank thinks that's an understatement.

"I'll stay," Frank says, and they both hear Inspector Toro's moan. Bob goes flying up the stairs to Ray's room, and Frank can hear when the door opens, hears the moans get louder, transition quickly into sharp shrieks and broken sobs. He can hear the soft murmur of Bob's voice, but not the words he's saying. There's a scream and Frank turns sharply from where he's been going, to Gerard's office, and he turns instead for the greenhouse. He's shaking at the pained, miserable, frightened sounds Ray's making, the calm in Bob's voice, and as soon as he's in the greenhouse, the sound is muted, as if by quiet music, light as wind. He knows it's still happening, can almost hear it if he tries, but instead he listens to the slow growing sounds of the plants, the whispers of blossoms, the dances of ferns, and sits down on the floor.

"I can see why you never let me in here," Frank says, to the room, to no one, to Gerard, "I'd never want to leave. I'd stay here in the quiet until the sun came. I bet it's gorgeous in the sun, warm and bright. Maybe someday I'll see it."

He lies on the floor, places his palms on the stone, and tries to melt into the room.  
The next morning Ray Toro's been confined to bed rest, but he’s bargained his way onto the couch in the downstairs sitting room. Frank finds reassurance in the Clan Code dictionary of Midnighter transformations, finds that werewolf transformations are not bloody or gory, but are most often traumatic in a different way.

"Hi Frank," Ray says, his voice scratchy. "Thanks for letting me stay here."

"It’s fine," Frank says, just barely stopping himself from saying ‘Inspector Toro.’ "Do you want me to go find – " Frank’s about to offer to find Bob, but a moment later, Bob appears behind him.

"Hi Frank," Bob says, and then he strides over to Ray. "So, I'm gonna a do something creepy," Bob says, and flicks out a tiny, sharp blade from in his sleeve. "Ok?"

"Ok," Ray says, and Bob waits and catches his gaze before he lifts a lock of Ray's hair and cuts off a curl. Ray's face is impassive, waiting. "Wait, that's - it?" Ray says.

"What did you think I was going to do?"

"I don't know, something creepy," Ray says.

"I just cut off a lock of your hair," Bob says.

"Yeah, and?" Ray says.

Bob tucks the knife back in his sleeve, the lock of hair carefully into his breast pocket. He looks at Ray for a long, intense moment, and then leans down over Ray on the couch, brushes his hand over Ray's cheek, and kisses him. Ray looks shocked when Bob pulls away. Then he stands and walks to the door. "I'll be back in two nights," he says, without looking back.

"Where are you going?" Ray asks.

Bob stops and turns half-around, his frame imposing, shadowy and large in the doorframe. "There's a reason I'm in the Blind Order," he says. "And a reason why I'm not worried about keeping my identify secret. People are scared of me," Bob says. "And they should be." He turns and goes out the door. Ray's breathing is shallow, but he sighs, and touches his hand to his lips almost as if he isn't aware he's doing it at all, his eyes on the door Bob's just gone out of.  
Frank can't manage to keep track of the traffic in and out of the Mansion anymore. He knows Lindsey is here half the time because Jamia's here, watching Frank like she's waiting for him to lose it at any moment. Pete's here because Patrick's here because Greta here, keeping the magic of the house together and cursing Schechter's name. Frank's all but invited Ray to take up rooms, because it's not as though he'll be ready anytime soon to face finding a Midnighter apartment. Frank does the laundry and cleans up after everyone when they're not looking and generally tries to keep out of everyone's way.

"I can't pass it," Lindsey says, headed straight for Jamia, holding a huge stack of papers as Frank's sweeping the front hall.

"Not with that attitude," Pete says with a plastered on smile.

"Oh, fuck you, I'm not in the mood for one of your pep talks."

"So I take it the meeting didn't go well?" Jamia asks.

"Hey, whatever," Pete says, "At least I know how to pass laws in my community."

"You," Lindsey says, "Were working with a community who needed exactly what you gave them. I am trying to change people for the better, and believe me, they don't like it."

"Tell them to swallow their medicine," Pete says.

"That's not how it works," Lindsey says. "This is exactly why we need to pass the act, I can't just universally declare a thing to be true and expect everyone to follow me."

"You think that's what I do?" Pete asks. "That I just made the Clan Code up?"

"Don't start this fight with me, Wentz, I know what went into the Clan Code, I just don't appreciate you acting like I'm missing something obvious in my approach to public policy."

"Your public policy runs you," Pete says.

"You know what, that's it," Lindsey says, slamming the stack of papers on the coffee table. "I know that you respect the Mindless Act, so I'm just going to pretend not to hear you while you try to pick a fight. If you want a fight, go find Patrick."

That seems to have an impact on Pete, whose face shutters, and he stalks out of the room. "Oh, well done," Jamia says. "Now I have to go make sure he doesn't actually do that," and she runs out after Pete.

"Do you want me to get you something to eat?" Frank says as Lindsey sits down, looking defeated.

"Yeah," she says, "That might help."

When Frank returns with a tray for her, she has several small, old books open on the table in front of her. He places a coffee and a bowl of sliced fruit down beside her and is about to turn and walk off when she stops him.

"Frank," she says, and he stills, and after a moment, sits back down. "Do you remember when Alicia said I got trapped in Fairy?" When he nods, she says, "Want to know how I got out?" Lindsey asks.

She gestures for Frank to take a seat, and he does.

"It was couple of years ago, right before my first term of Governor, I was invited to a Midnighter dinner party," she says. "It seemed someone had some idea I was an up and coming Daylighter and this was the sort of networking thing you did. So I went."

Frank watches as she arranges the fruit on her plate, spins her coffee cup but doesn't sip.

"Turns out the party wasn't in one of the liminal quarters of the Midnighter city. It was in Fairy. Which would have been fine," Lindsey says, "Except I made two mistakes. The first was that I went alone," she says. "Can you guess the second?"

"You ate something at the party," Frank says.

"I did. I knew you weren't supposed to eat anything at a party in Fairy, but I didn't know I was in Fairy. They were relying on my own ignorance, and it worked. I never saw the person who invited me, but I think that was the intention. You don't go to a party alone unless you expect to be meeting someone you know, so I just assumed that they were using his name as a part of the trap. And I'd always trusted Adam."

"What happened when you tried to leave?" Frank asks.

"You don't want to know," Lindsey says. "But it's how I came to count Alicia as a friend. She basically argued my case for me, and when that didn't work, left to get help. And then Gerard Way walked in."

Frank tries to hide how hard he's startled by hearing Gerard's name, but Lindsey doesn't remark on it.

"It was so bizarre. I was alone in the middle of a fairy court and the famous Midnighter detective was shaking my hand. He told me to follow him, and I did, the next thing I knew, I was out on the street a few blocks away from where I'd gone in. He put me in a carriage, and told me to call him if I needed anything."

"You're saying you think he's Fairy," Frank says.

"Actually, I always thought Alicia had just called in a favor. It's the sort of thing Gerard did all the time, isn't it?"

"Except the fairies don't recognize Gerard as a professional," Frank says. "Unless they do if he's one of them?"

Lindsey shakes her head. "It's a mystery. It would be the perfect case for the great detective, if it weren't already about him."  
In the greenhouse that night, as he’s dusting under the Immaculate Violets, so named because they stand any traces of dirt other than the barest amount to cover their roots, he thinks about Lindsey’s story, and how Gerard must have been lying when he said he wasn’t Fairy. There's no other reason the Fairy courts would have listened to him during the Governor’s case. It explains a lot more about Alicia, too, and if she has been watching out for Mikey instead of trying to lure him into evil or whatever Frank thought in his more morbid moments. He wonders if Gerard has been thrown out of Fairy, or if maybe there was a reason he was trying to keep it secret from Mikey.

There’s a marked page just after the Immaculate Violets, another turned down corner. Frank can almost picture Gerard’s fingers smoothing over the fold. The drawing of this flower fills up almost the whole page, and there’s only a tiny scrawl of text.

>  **Panged Marigold** :
> 
> Twin beds on the North wall facing the carriage house. Midnighter species.
> 
> Similar in appearance to the Daylighter marigold species, especially in color and leaf shape. When the first flower falls, all of the blossoms adjacent promptly wilt and fall at once. Do not water except with tears.

The panged marigolds look full and healthy, but Frank’s already watching for signs of wilting; there are a few blossoms on each plant that look close to falling, and all for the rest even the ones that look perfectly full, even the ones that haven’t fully opened yet, will fall with it. Frank wonder how he is going to water it, if tears are something you can buy at the apothecary, but Frank finds it’s not hard to come by them at all.  
Bob comes back two nights later, followed, almost inexplicably by Brendon and Jon. Bob goes straight upstairs to where Ray's rooms are and doesn't say a word to anyone.

"You ok?" Lindsey asks Brendon, taking in, as Frank does, his askew tie, his red eyes.

"Just had to spend my whole evening on the paperwork generated by Bryar's _level seven vendetta_ ," he says, shouting the last part, as though trying to reach Bob, who, Frank figures, can actually hear him from three floors up. Jon laughs.

"Oh," Lindsey says, and Frank figures she's come to the same conclusion he has: they can make a pretty good guess what a level seven vendetta means and they don't need to know anymore.

"Your zombie should be released soon," Brendon says. "The Zombie Affairs Office has cleared him of any wrongdoing, assuming you don't want to press charges."

"Yeah, no," Frank says. "Just tell me when he gets out and I'll go pick him up."

"Pick who up?" Greta says, coming in with a large piece of slate, which she abruptly hands to Patrick, who has followed her in. Patrick looks around and sets the slate on the floor under an armchair.

"First," Schechter says, walking into the room, and startling everyone. It’s not odd at this point for everyone to have gathered in the Way Mansion, but Schechter seems to wait until he has a particularly full audience to come out of his trance, for maximum dramatic effect. He snaps his fingers, and Patrick shudders all over. Schechter holds open his hand, and a hat appears in it. He hands it to Patrick, who, after a moment of hesitation, puts it on his head.

"How -" Patrick says.

"I told you, you didn't have the Curse of the Ninth. Also," he says, pointing a finger at Jon, "Don't you ever curse Patrick again."

Jon laughs a delighted chuckle and Brendon groans.

"Seriously?" Brendon says to Jon. "Seriously, this whole time, that was you? Why?"

"Because I could?" Jon says. Brendon groans again. Patrick takes his hat off, puts it back on, and whispers a thanks to Schechter, who, Frank notices, still looks kind of pale and weak but not at all as Frank thought he would look, after the way Greta has made it sound like he was falling apart.

"Seriously?" Brendon says. Jon grins at him. "Just - go see Ryan," he sighs, and Jon walks off, a noticeable jaunt in his step. "Spencer Smith," Brendon says, and Spencer quickly steps to Brendon's side from where he's been staying out of the way.

"Yes sir," Spencer says.

"Spencer, I have had a terrible day."

"It certainly seems like it, sir," Spencer says kindly.

"And so I was wondering," Brendon says, "Can we go into the next room, and can I get down on my knees and blow you?"

The room goes very still. "Uh," Spencer says.

"Please," Brendon says, eyes closed.

"Sir, that's actually in violation of the Clan Code for Valet-Master relations."

"You're fired?" Brendon offers hopefully.

"Actually I quit," Spencer says, going quite red.

Brendon sighs, sounding relieved, and he grabs Spencer by the elbow and the two of them disappear from the room.

Schechter grips the chair, and Greta rushes forward. "I'm fine," he says. "Though I wish I had been spared witnessing that." He tries to straighten himself and stutters.

"Don't," she says. She raises her hand to his chest and does something that looks like she's smoothing his shirt but is quite obviously magic, because Schechter straightens more easily.

"Very nicely done," he says. Greta smiles, and then shakes her head at him, scolding.

Patrick is still putting his hat on and off.

"I just saw Brendon and Spencer making out in the - " Pete says, walking into the room. He stops when he sees Schechter, and then he says, "Oh, Pattycakes," when he sees Patrick's hat.

"Come on, Pete, don't make a big - "

But then Pete throws his arms around Schechter. "You fixed him," Pete says, into Schechter's chest. “Also, you’re better! But you fixed Patrick!”

"Greta," Schechter says, his voice clipped. "Get him off me."

Greta just takes a step closer and mutters something and Pete springs away, but he seems unphased.

"I wasn't broken," Patrick says with a huff.

"You were hatless," Pete says, "And you were so freaked out you couldn't write!" He looks like he's about to hug Schechter again.

"Out," Schechter says. "I need to talk to Frank. Greta, watch the door."

Schechter closes his eyes when Greta closes the door and conjures a circle of stones, and then sits in the middle. Frank feels like Schechter is staring at him through his closed lids.

"Frank, sit down," Schechter says, and easily, like Schechter's hand is on his shoulder, and Frank folds his legs and sits down to the right of Schechter's circle. "Greta, I'm fine," he says, when Greta still hovers by the door.

"You're not," she says.

"Fine, I'm not, but I need to talk to Frank," he says. Greta wards the room and then steps out the door. "How's your tattoo healing?" Schechter says.

Frank pulls up his sleeve, shows it to Schechter, who takes Frank's arm without opening his eyes, and when he presses his fingers too it, Frank is suddenly wide eyed and alert.

"It didn't work very well," Frank says.

"How are you feeling?" Schechter asks.

"How do you think I'm feeling, Schechter? I've got Pete Wentz, the Governor, Jamia, Bob, and half the Blind Order in the living room, Dewees is in prison, Mikey's stuck inside some Fairy magic barrier, and Gerard's - " he can't say it, is momentarily choked without words. "And you're here in a fucking stone circle."

Schechter laughs, a low chuckle that sounds like it's covering some deep sadness. "I'm sorry I can't fix this, Frank," Schechter says. "But you're not sick anymore."

"No," Frank says, and he's glad Schechter doesn't try to ask him if he knows why. "What the hell is wrong with you anyway?" Frank says, with a convenient way to redirect his anger. "Is this about - about Gerard?"

"Yes, but not in the way I'm letting everyone think."

"What does that mean? Don't give me riddles, Schechter, I'm tired."

"You're tired?" Schechter says, but it doesn't seem to dissuade him from his explanation. "When a sorcerer attaches himself to a household, a magical bond forms. There is no guideline for how it happens, it's about the combination of the sorcerer's and the household's magic. Turns out," Schechter says, "This household had some pretty powerful magic."

"I don't understand," Frank says. "Is this because of what Gerard - what he is?"

"Yes," Schechter says. “But don’t ask me, because I don’t know. I just know… more.”

“Yeah, that’s a lot less cryptic, thanks,” Frank says. "So why do you need to talk to me?"

"Because I need you to be the Head of my Household," Schechter says. "You are Gerard's -"

"I swear to god, if you say I'm his mate - "

"You're his," Schechter says. "So I'm yours."

"I don't like the sound of that," Frank says.

"Too bad, give me your arm again," Schechter says, and he presses his palm into the middle of Frank's forearm. He feels a searing pain that's immediately gone as soon as he's conscious of it. "Congratulations, you now are the proud owner of a household and a house sorcerer."

"So is this going to help you?" Frank asks dubiously.

"Depends on how good a head of household you are," Schechter says. "Now leave me alone and send the Governor in. Greta's not kidding about me needing to see one person at a time. Don't go to the second floor sitting room, there’s a willow tree in there now and I can’t seem to make it stop growing."

"Christ," Frank says. "You're scary."

"You don't even know," Schechter says. "Governor first, don't let Wentz try and cut in line. And Frank," Schechter says. "Greta's good, she can help you until I'm better."

"Help me do what?"

"Put this house in order."  
The first thing Frank thinks to do, of course, is to go back to the greenhouse. He's so relieved that Schechter is awake, that he's here to make things right – but that's not it, it doesn't feel out of Frank's control anymore. He realizes he should have asked about the kind of magic Schechter was doing – what it means to be the Head of House, but that is something else Frank seems to know instinctively now, too. In the same way that he knows how to handle the requests his master gave him when he was in his valet headspace. All of the things he would have gone to Gerard for, it feels like Frank is able to answer them now. He can just feel the way things are supposed to be, the way you know your way around a room without thinking about the steps you're taking. Frank can see all of the frayed edges of the household. The greenhouse seems the most in order, but it's also like it's the center of the house somehow, and he wonders if magically it is, if houses have hearts, this is the place from which everything important radiates.

He picks up Gerard's journal, feeling for the turned down corners he knows must be there, and he opens it to the marked page.

>  **Red Repose Poppy** :
> 
> Under the Hawthorn saplings. Midnighter hybrid grown from Daylighter species.
> 
> Completely cover stems with fresh, moist dirt twice a day. Each blossom blooms twice - once in the ground, where the petals droop until they arch completely away from the center, at which point they curl back into form a bud. This bud grows above the dirt and blooms again.
> 
> Has grown accustomed to the glass case that reveals the underground blossoms, but is still quite shy and the privacy screen over the front should be lifted only once a season.

Frank hasn't given the poppy any fresh dirt, and he feels it respond as soon as he does, the moist dirt under his fingers, stirring like something sleeping turning over without waking.

"Gerard," Frank says into the silence, "Honestly, you should have left me a better instruction manual if you were going to go off and get yourself killed. Because Schechter thinks I can run your house, and not like a valet. Magically or whatever. He's put me in charge, can you believe it? What a crazy fuck." He feels the poppy settle itself still under the ground, and thinks about peeking at it through the privacy screen, but he decides he should just leave it be. "So, I'll do my best, ok?" Frank says, half to the poppy, half to the nothingness that he pretends is Gerard, listening. "I'll do my very best."  
The Zombie Affairs Office releases Dewees the next evening.

"I should just go back to your old apartment," Dewees says for the third time.

"No," Frank says, "You're coming back to the Mansion, so shut up about it." It's enough of a command that Dewees stays absurdly quiet.

After he convinces – or orders - Dewees to resume his valet duties, Frank knocks on Schechter's office because he wants to know if Schechter wants dinner, and because Cortez wants to know how permanent the vernal pool in the middle of the kitchen is going to be. The door creaks open without Schechter saying anything. He's sitting on the floor, a circle of sand drawn around him, four branches at each of the directions. It's completely dark except for the light leaking in.

"Back so soon? Close the door behind you," Schechter says. "Sorry about the dark, it's the only thing that makes being conscious tolerable."

"It's no problem," Frank says. "I have great night vision."

Schechter huffs out a laugh and then makes a weird sound that's barely like clearing his throat.

"Are you ok?" Frank asks. "I don't even know what's wrong with you. Greta just kept saying you were unstable. And she was mad you didn't show her how to do a bunch of stuff."

"She would say that," Schechter says. "With Gerard's - with his death, and with Mikey cut off from me - " Schechter stops. Frank's never seen him struggle with something like this. "It's like having something in the middle of me paralyzed. I know it's there but I can't feel it, and it's like a giant sinkhole for my power."

"I know what you mean," Frank says. It's as good a description for how he's feeling, even though he knows Schechter's is more literally physical, or metaphysical.

"I'm sorry," Schechter says, leaning forward enough to put a hand over Frank's.

"Why does everything keep saying that?" Frank says. "Everyone lost him."

Schechter sighs, and it's the most familiar sign of his old, impatient self. "Frank," Schechter says, "If you don't know, then - " he sighs, and starts again. "Gerard loved you. And I don't mean like a valet. He loved you and everyone knows it, and so everyone is telling you they're sorry because they can't imagine that kind of loss, or they can, and you have their sympathy. So stop being an idiot about it. Someone's gotta run this place while the sorcerer pulls himself together."  
Every night after everyone's had dinner, the traffic in the house quiets down and Frank retreats to the greenhouse, and he cares for the plants as best he can according to the instructions in Gerard's journal. One night, he finds a ribbon-marked page he'd missed.

>  **Pas de Deux Viscaria** :
> 
> Unknown origin. Exterior placement, bordering the path to from the west entrance to the main house.
> 
> Night-blooming; sways gently to soft music, and is especially fond of quiet humming and stringed instruments.

 

Frank recognizes that flower. That's the one Gerard pinned to his lapel the night of the ball, and he said it swayed like a couple dancing. Frank thinks of the way they danced, how good it had felt to have Gerard so close....He wonders if that's why Gerard gave it to him, because it's a dancing flower. He wonders what Gerard was trying to tell him, and now -what if Gerard's doing the same? He's marked these flowers for no particular reason. No special instructions, the flowers and plants all seem fine, and don't seem to need his attention anymore than anything else. Frank pages back through the plants - they're all flowers with meanings that describe how they grow, like the dancing viscaria. The sickly anemone. The regretful rue, the sleeping poppy, the mourning marigold. And an invitation to dance, as Gerard asked him so long ago. Did Gerard know he was going to die? Did he mark these for Frank, was he trying to leave him some sort of message? That would be just like Gerard, to leave him clues. But the thing is, Frank isn't any kind of detective.

Frank closes the book. The calendar at the front says Beltane is in two days, and there are lots of plants that need trimming and cutting. The change of season will keep him busy and it's just as well. It makes him feel like he's a part of the greenhouse, that it's maybe accepting him, now, as an acceptable substitute caretaker. Maybe because all the plants know how much he misses Gerard, too.  
There are several pages in Gerard's journal dedicated to Beltane preparations, and Frank spends the days leading up to it cleaning the greenhouse and clearing the courtyard, trimming back plants and preparing the cuttings for the bonfire. It's soothing and methodical work, and he asks Bob for help setting the torches around the fire pit, and Jamia helps him carry wood for burning, but he's asked everyone to let him to light the bonfire alone. It feels important, almost like it's a ritual, and it doesn't feel right to share it.

Frank has the back door to the greenhouse propped open with one of the potted blue pines. He's sweeping with the oak broom. He's supposed to take one turn around the fire pit where he’s making the bonfire clockwise, then turn and sweep his way back counter-clockwise, and again clockwise, until he's made concentric circles around the pit. He's done the same inside the greenhouse, though it's easier outside, because of the shape of the yard, the clearing, and Frank doesn't have to keep dodging around the tables and terra cotta pots.

He places several of the dead plants at the center, as the journal instructs him to do, and sets them in the center, and starts piling kindling around them, putting the smaller cuttings, the flowers and branches, on top. It takes Frank maybe an hour, and he's started early enough that he's ready long before midnight. He checks the journal, but everything is right, and so Frank sits on the table, legs swinging, and watches the stars, listens to the sounds.

Despite everything, despite their losses, tonight feels like a reprieve. Frank lets his heart quiet - his real heart - and he opens himself to where he's connected to the house. It's the first time since Schechter made him Head of household that he's felt it this clearly, but this is what’s been buzzing under his skin since Schechter connected him to the magic. Like there's an order to things, a clear path, and when he follows the path, everything else will fall into place. It's a feeling so deep in his gut, Frank's rarely felt anything like it, not since he made the decision to become a vampire. That had been so small, so insignificant compared to this, where Frank can sense Schechter, and Dewees, and Ray and everyone passing through the house. He can almost sense Mikey somewhere out there, and even Gerard, like he's left so many traces of himself that Frank doesn't have to do this alone. He feels it most keenly in the greenhouse, where evidence of Gerard's gifts are spread all over each table, blooming and growing, climbing and waving and in the case of the Choral Mums, humming. It had hurt Frank at first to see all of this, to see what he'd lost reflected back at him, but now it doesn't hurt in the same way. The memory comforts him rather than tears at him, and Frank's grateful that he's able to spend so much of his time alone here, in this place that belonged to Gerard, in his memory.

The idea of lighting a bonfire doesn't scare Frank. Not with Schechter's magic, not in this fire pit on the grounds of this house. Frank feels like he could put a fire out with just the right look; he knows he should be careful, and he will, his instincts keep him safe, but the magic of the house assures Frank he won't catch fire here just by some accident. He's safe from the fire he creates. He'll watch the fire burn until it is embers, and then he'll extinguish it, close up the greenhouse, and go to sleep.

Frank strikes the matches and lights the hawthorn branch on fire, holding it carefully, far away from him, but it catches quickly and burns evenly, and Frank carries it to the wood in the pit, urging it to catch, and when it starts to smolder and the flames to spread, Frank lays the branch across the top of the other wood and steps back. He watches as it grows and grows, throwing the whole courtyard into a warm, rich orange light. Embers lift into the air and burn themselves out, as if the air, too, belongs to his household and protects Frank from setting the whole grounds on fire.

Frank walks backwards as the fire grows against the horizon, the dark blue of the sky and the stars and the heat of the fire feels perfect in the cold night. It's just barely pulling away from winter, and Frank rubs his hands over the arms of his jacket, turning so his body is equally warmed by the heat. He closes his eyes and breathes in the scent of the burning wood, the hawthorn, the greenhouse flowers. The fire smells as if it's smoke and bloom at the same time, ash and blossom, and Frank thinks of the sticky sap of a branch Gerard should be tending too, like last year, Frank scrubbing the sap from Gerard’s hands, their fingers meeting in the warm water of the sink, their faces close together. Frank lets himself think about it, lets himself feel the throb of the pain fully, and once it recedes to the background, Frank can actually feel the memory, feel how thrilling it was to touch Gerard, to see his smile. A piece of wood shifts in the fire pit, and Frank opens his eyes, gets the poker and shifts everything, the warm glow evening out, Frank's eyes following the tendrils of smoke into the sky. When he looks back down, the fire dances at the edges of his vision, and so it takes him a minute to realize there's something on the other side of the fire pit, the flames licking up and around their shadowy outline.

"Schechter, I told you, I'm being careful with the fire," Frank says. But the figure moves, coming over to the other side of the fire pit, and Frank can see that it's not Schechter at all. "I - " Frank says, and he can't say anything else, because the figure coming around the fire is Gerard.

"Hi Frankie," he says. It has to be because he's so close to the fire, but he's glowing, his hair shiny, his eyes bright. He's wearing a suit Frank's never seen before, all black, with something like silk shining on the lapels and the cuffs.

"Am I on fire?" Frank asks quietly. Gerard laughs, low and warm and it stirs something low in Frank's belly. "I'm on fire, aren't I? Because I'm hallucinating." He doesn't believe it, even as he's saying it, but he knows he has to explain this. He has to find a way. "Or, no, it was one of the poisonous plants in the greenhouse, I got a thorn in my hand or something, something under my nail."

Gerard's walking closer and Frank's talking faster as though he has to figure it out before Gerard gets close.

"You're not hallucinating. And I don't think you've been poisoned," Gerard says. He's an inch away from touching Frank, his hand reaching out for Frank's arm. When Gerard touches him, his hand warm on Frank's wrist, Frank's startled by a noise. He realizes he's the one who made it. "I'm so sorry," Gerard says. "I'm sorry I was gone."

"You - " Frank says. He thinks he ought to try to pull away, because this can't be Gerard touching him, but he can't seem to move. "You weren't gone, Gee, you weren't away on a trip. You're dead."

"I was dead," Gerard says.

"So you're a zombie," Frank says, or a little more hopefully, "Or a vampire." It makes him feel better about how he's letting Gerard's hand travel up his arm. He might be real.

"No," Gerard says. "I'm just myself. More than I've ever been."

"What does that mean?" Frank says, desperately, and then Gerard's stepping forward, holding Frank close to him. Frank doesn't even try to struggle, he just lets Gerard's arms envelop him. Gerard feels the same, warm and he smells the same, and Frank thinks this is a really wonderful hallucination, until he feels Gerard's heart beating under his hand. Frank pulls back enough to look Gerard in the eyes. "Gee?" Frank says, and then Gerard's holding him tight again.

"Yeah, Frankie, I'm right here," Gerard says, smoothing circles over Frank's back, then over Frank's neck, and then, gently, cupping Frank's face with one hand, holding Frank's waist with the other. Gerard's thumb brushes Frank's bottom lip and Frank gasps a broken sound that strips him bare. "I'm here," Gerard says, brushing his thumb over Frank's cheek, back over his lips, and Frank nods, though he's still waiting, waiting for this to be taken from him, waiting for it to have been a dream he dreamed asleep at the fire, waiting for it to be magic.

"You died," Frank says.

"I did," Gerard says. His eyes don't leave Frank's face. "But I also came back to life. With the right magic, and with the right care…." Gerard says.

"You mean, Schechter."

"Brian helped guide me back, yes," Gerard says. "But someone also put my house back together. Someone tended my plants, and spoke to me while I waited. While I grew stronger."

"You mean - " Frank says.

"I heard you," Gerard says. "Or maybe 'hear' is the wrong word. I felt you. All the time you spent here. All the things you said."

"I followed your book," Frank says, because he's not sure what else he can say.

"You did," Gerard says, a wide smile spreading over his face. "That is a beautiful bonfire." Gerard leans closer, brushes his mouth to Frank's ear, and says, very quietly, "Do you know what happens on Beltane?"

Frank nods, because he's been in the Midnighter community long enough to witness several increasingly naked takes on the holiday.

"I don't think you do," Gerard says, still softly, still right against Frank's ear. Frank shivers at the tone, at the way Gerard is crowding into his space, breath after breath until their chests are pressed together. "Want me to show you, Frankie?"

Frank nods again and Gerard grabs the back of his head, tugging tight on his hair so Frank's head tips back, his mouth open in surprise. Gerard leans the rest of the way in and kisses him, and it's like the first spark of the bonfire, how it smoked and smoldered and then suddenly burst into flame. Gerard kisses him like he's fuel for the fire.

Gerard kisses Frank until he's trembling. If he had any doubt Gerard was real, that he was right here, it's gone with those kisses. He's never been kissed like this, never been so needed. Gerard tugs on his hair when he wants to change the angle of their mouths meeting, nips Frank's lips as though to show him he's in control. And Gerard is in control in a way Frank's never seen before. This is his bonfire, his mansion, his ground. Frank is his, and Gerard is reminding Frank from the inside out, proving it to Frank with every breath, every kiss. Frank doesn't understand, but he doesn't need to understand to know, how true, how right it feels.

"Waited for you," Frank murmurs as Gerard sucks on the sweet spot just below his ear, untucks Frank's shirt and slides his hands along Frank's ribs, pulls Frank impossibly closer.

"I know you did," Gerard says, low and throaty. "My Frank. You're mine, aren't you?"

"Yes," Frank says, "Show me I'm yours," and Gerard practically growls.

"Lie on the ground," Gerard says. "I'm going to take off all your clothes."

The ground is smooth and Frank wonders if this is why one of the instructions for Beltane was to sweep the area around the bonfire. He'd thought it was to create a clean space, keeping sparks and embers from catching anything, but now that Frank's being spread out on the ground, Gerard cradling his head as he settles himself, Gerard leaning over him, Frank wonders if cleaning around the fire was preparation for something else, something more intimate.

Gerard's not kidding about taking off all of his clothes. Frank tries to unbutton his shirt but Gerard chases his hands away, setting them wordlessly but very clearly back at Frank's sides. Frank's fingers brush across the soft dirt, and he digs his fingernails in when Gerard presses his mouth to the skin he's just exposed as he opens Frank's shirt. "Oh, Frank," Gerard murmurs, continuing the path down Frank's chest, opening his shirt, sliding it away so slowly away, letting it catch at Frank's elbows, so Frank feels even more exposed with it half on. Gerard looks up at Frank, his chin on Frank's stomach, and smiles, and Frank feels a jolt of heat all the way through him. Gerard lavishes so much attention on Frank's stomach, tracing the tattoos with his tongue, sliding up Frank's sides with soft brushes of his fingers that Frank's squirming.

"Sit up," Gerard says, and Frank does, and Gerard leans in and kisses him while he undoes the cuffs of Frank's sleeves, and Frank wonders how he has the concentration, but Gerard seems amazingly calm, Frank feels wrapped up in it, how smooth and easy all of Gerard's movements are. How confident and controlled.

"Gee," Frank gasps, as Gerard slides his shirt off and then presses his open palms against Frank's back. "God, I missed you." Frank feels as if the words are torn from him, like he didn't mean to say them at all.

Gerard kisses his way down Frank's shoulder, down to the crook of his arm, his fingers tracing the path his mouth follows, holding his arm out as Gerard licks the inside of Frank's wrist, licks across his palm, bites the pad of his thumb and does everything in reverse on the way back up. Frank's whimpering by the time Gerard makes his way to his other arm, trembling by the time he makes his way back up the side of Frank's neck, tongue pressing rhythmically against Frank's throat.

"You took care of my house," Gerard says, grazing his teeth down Frank's neck, laving his tongue into the dip of Frank's collarbone so that Frank's stomach tightens, and he curls himself in toward Gerard.

"I tried," Frank says, as Gerard lowers him down onto the ground, cradling his head, carding his fingers through Frank's hair, lingering at the nape of his neck.

"You were perfect, Frankie," Gerard says, as he slides the heels of his hands down over Frank's stomach, settles them on his hips, and then starts undoing Frank's belt and the fastenings on his pants. "You were everything I needed."

"I - " Frank says, as Gerard slowly pulls down his pants, his thumbs tugging at his briefs , bowing them down to reveal the planes of Frank's hips, the dark patch of hair, swell of his cock. Frank's too overwhelmed to say anything, to think about how his heart broke every day, how the only thing that made it bearable was the illusion that he was talking to Gerard in the greenhouse and now it wasn't an illusion. Instead, Frank says, "Going to be dirty," Frank says, "If you take off everything."

"Oh I am going to take off everything," Gerard says, pulling Frank's pants and underwear down so they settle at his thighs, stopping Frank from spreading his legs like he wants to. "And I don't mind a little dirt," Gerard says. He leans forward, pressing himself, still fully clothed, draping himself over Frank's body, kissing Frank's chin, than the corner of his mouth, then licking over Frank's bottom lip, pulling back when Frank tries to catch him in a kiss. "I'll lick you clean," he murmurs at Frank's ear and then takes his earlobe between his teeth, and Frank arches up into the firm press of Gerard's body over him. Gerard's black suit is getting dusty at the knees and elbows, but Gerard doesn't seem to care and Frank wants to say something, but each time Gerard touches him, he's shocked out of his worry. How ridiculous a worry, to think about dirt on a suit when Gerard is here, when Gerard is touching him.

Frank could come like this, Gerard licking and breathing soft little huffs into Frank's ear, his thumbs on Frank's hips, stroking the skin over and over, his fingers kneading Frank's back, Frank's cock rubbing against the wool of Gerard's pants, the crisp cotton of his shirt, almost just enough to be too rough, too little to give him what he needs. Every time Frank thinks that Gerard is here, that he's right here, Frank could stay here forever in this moment, Gerard so close, Frank's hands in the dirt and then on Gerard's back, desperate to hold him close.

"Frank," Gerard says, his voice low against Frank's ear. "I want you to come in my mouth."

Frank throws his head back, whines high in his throat. Tries desperately not to come just from the idea and Gerard sucks at the tendon where his neck meets his shoulder, takes his time kissing his way down Frank's chest, lingering at his nipples, at his belly button, waits until Frank opens his eyes and looks down at Gerard, mouth red and shiny, and Frank's eyes fall closed again as Gerard takes Frank's cock into his mouth.

Frank's pants are still at his thighs, working themselves down to his knees as Frank shifts restlessly, Gerard's mouth moving up and down his cock, hot and slippery and slick, the curl of Gerard's tongue, the soft insides of his cheeks, the way he sucks so perfectly, and Frank realizes he's shouting with each thrust of his hips, begging, pleading, shouting Gerard's name, and Gerard's fingers tighten on Frank's hips and Frank's coming, lifting his up from the ground, bending his knees, the side of his face in the dirt.

Frank feels Gerard slip off his shoes, his socks, then tug the pants caught at Frank's knees the rest of the way down his legs. Frank doesn't care that he's naked now. He curls his toes in the dirt, presses his heels, hears Gerard laugh somewhere above him.

"You have no idea how you look," Gerard says, his voice rich and low. "God, Frankie," he says, and then he's on his knees, hands tracing wildly all over Frank's chest, down his arms, then he grabs Frank's wrists and pulls them up to the sides of his head, presses them down against the ground, straddles Frank, tightens his grip, presses Frank down. "Mine," Gerard says, loud and kisses Frank like he hadn't already claimed his mouth, like Frank needed reminding. "You," Gerard says, punctuating each word with a devastating kiss, "Are. Mine."

"Yes," Frank says, brokenly, tilting his head back so the firelight dances bright in his eyes. "So this is what you do on Beltane?"

"Are you jealous?" Gerard answers, voice low.

"Yes," Frank tries to say, but Gerard's fingers dig into his arm, and Frank looks up. Gerard's eyes are wide, and wild.

"Frank. This is the first," Gerard says, and his hips stutter against Frank's. He presses his forehead to Frank's shoulder. "The first time I've needed," and then he trails off, sliding his mouth down Frank's chest.

"Please," Frank says, "Tell me what - "

"You," Gerard gasps out before Frank can even finish. "I need you."

"Gee," Frank says, brushing his hand over Gerard's face, smearing dirt across Gerard's cheek, his chin. "You can fuck me right now."

Gerard makes a strangled sound and pushes forward, crushing Frank momentarily under his weight. Then he lifts himself up, sits back on his heels and starts taking off his clothes, his eyes never leaving Frank. Frank spreads his legs, slowly, heels and calves sliding across the dirt. Gerard's out of his clothes fast, and he's kneeling down beside Frank, arranging Frank's legs around him. Frank feels exposed, but then Gerard's hands are on his ass, Gerard's thumbs spreading him open. Gerard's thumbs nudge against his hole and then Gerard's pressing a finger slick with spit, then another inside. Frank tosses his head back, moans. It's going to hurt and it doesn't matter, because Gerard needs him so badly he's shaking and Frank doesn't need him to be gentle.

"Don't make me wait," Frank says, though his voice is weak and it sounds more like a plea than the imperative he means it to be. It's clearly what Gerard needs to hear, though, because he's kissing his way up Frank's thighs, fingers still moving. Gerard yanks Frank's hips close, and then Frank twists, turns over.

"Yes," Gerard says, "Please, Frank, can I?" He palms Frank's ass, thumb tracing over the hole.

Frank presses his face to the ground, tucks his knees up under him, and says, "Yours."

Gerard's fingers squeeze, digging into Frank's thighs and then he's sliding himself inside Frank, so slowly. When Gerard's all the way in, he lets out a choked sound and presses his mouth to the middle of Frank's back. "Mine," Gerard says. He and Frank groan together, and then Gerard's hands are tight on Frank's hips as he starts to press in and out, slower than Frank thought from how desperate he sounded. But something about the slowness seems to be deliberate, necessary, too.

This isn't like any of the other times they've done this. Even Frank, who's being driven crazy by Gerard's slow measured movements, the exhalations across his spine, can tell the pitch, the electricity is different. They're on the ground, outside in the open, clothed in fire shadows, and Gerard is here. He's here, and he needs Frank. Not to clean up after him, not to solve a case, not to keep him company. Gerard needs Frank in a desperate, raw way that's been building since they first met. This is the first time it's been like this, but it's not new, it's just more. Gerard feels different, more vivid, more alive against Frank's skin, and Frank hasn't realized how empty he's been without him, how lost, how clear everything seems now, like he's being brought back to life, too, from the cool shadows he was slumbering in.

It's as though Gerard can feel Frank accept it, can feel him believe it. Gerard's thrusts come faster, and Frank's bearing down to meet him. "I missed you," Frank says, and he's not even sure he's making sense, not sure Gerard will understand.

"Yes, Frankie," Gerard says. Frank feels sparks go up his spine, feels himself so close to coming, so soon it's curling in his toes. Everywhere Gerard is touching him is hot, sparking like the fire. Frank digs his fingers in the dirt and Gerard moans. "Frankie," Gerard says, and it's drawn out, it sounds dragged out of him. Gerard thrusts so hard that Frank's knees slip in the dirt. "Frank, please. Tell me - "

"Yours," Frank whispers, and then Frank's coming then without realizing it's happening, without even Gerard touching his cock. He shudders and squeezes around Gerard, and it seems to take Gerard as much by surprise as it does Frank, because Gerard's gasping, "Fuck, fuck, oh, Frank," and then he's biting hard on Frank's shoulder blade, fingers digging tight into Frank's hips, Gerard making a noise low in his throat and then Frank can feel him coming, Frank shuddering helplessly against him as Gerard gasps for breath. They fall onto the ground together Gerard holds him tight. Frank closes his eyes, listens to Gerard's heart, and the crackling of the fire. They stay there for what seems like hours, but Frank's warm, he's safe. Gerard will never let him go.

"The fire's dying down," Gerard says, arm curled protectively around Frank's chest, knees tucked into the bend of Frank's legs. "We should go inside."

"You'll still be here, when we go in?" Frank asks, his voice quiet. After everything, Frank's still afraid that his is some kind of dream.

Gerard presses his mouth to Frank's temple, holds it there in a long caress of a kiss. "Yes, Frank. I'll still be here. I'll still be right here."

Frank has his pants half on, his shirt barely over his shoulders as they stumble inside. Frank doesn't want to let Gerard go, doesn't want to let him out of his sight, but he can't be selfish, he's already taken too much. "Mikey's stuck in Fairy," Frank says.

"I know," Gerard says. "We're going to go get him. I needed you first," Gerard says. "You make me stronger."

Frank shrugs. "I can't possibly - "

Gerard is suddenly close, pressing Frank against the greenhouse table. "I would still be in that tomb if it wasn't for you," Gerard says. "Do you understand me, Frank? You saved me."

"Ok," Frank says. Gerard shakes his head.

"No," he says. "You have to believe it. You have to understand what you mean to me. You're mine, but I have to be yours."

"Gee - "

"Frank, don't you see? If you don't think you deserve me - after all this - "

"I love you," Frank says, and Gerard's eyes go wide, and then bright. Frank's mouth is open wide, and he's not even sure he's said it, but it's ringing in his ears.

Gerard just kisses him, slow, soft. "Frank," Gerard says, "Oh, Frank. Come on, you ready to go rescue my brother?" Gerard asks, pulling back, his hand still on the back of Frank's neck.

"I can’t come with you," Frank says. "It's almost dawn."

"I can hold back the dawn," Gerard says. Frank stands there frozen, not sure if he could have heard Gerard right. Gerard crosses the greenhouse door and pulls it open. Schechter is waiting on the other side. "Brian, I need the carriage. Get the Governor, get Brendon, and anyone else who will come."

"Welcome back," Schechter says dryly. They stare at each other, then embrace in a quick, rough hug. Schechter closes his eyes, and Frank feels the room fill with magic, then it crackles out. "They're on their way. And," Schechter says, "There's no need for the carriage."

"You've gotten stronger," Gerard says.

"Oh, yeah, and you had nothing to do with that." Schechter says.

"You were always going to have this much power," Gerard says. "I knew it when I first asked you to be my sorcerer."

"You could have told me, you know," Schechter says, "About some of it, at least."

"I couldn't," Gerard says. He looks at Schechter, then at Frank.

"I know," Schechter says.

Frank blinks, and in a moment, they're standing outside the Fairy blockade. He didn't even feel the magic, didn't even need Schechter to touch them.

"Put your clothes on," Schechter says to Frank, who hurries to do just that. Gerard is striding up to the Fairy border, inspecting it as though searching the invisible wall for a seam. Frank watches as the Governor, Brendon, Bob and Pete arrive, flashing into the space as though Schechter has reached through the air and yanked them from their homes, which, as far as Frank can tell, might be exactly what happened.

"You got my message, I assume?" Schechter says. The Governor nods, but Brendon's still looking around like he can't tell where he set down his coffee. Pete's striding forward and then he stops when he sees Gerard.

"Is that - " the Governor says.

"Oh," Brendon says, his hand over his mouth. "Oh. Oh." Gerard isn't looking at any of them. He's still inspecting the Fairy wall, slowly, deliberately.

Greta arrives a few minutes later, followed quickly by Dewees, Patrick, and Spencer. Spencer immediately runs over to Brendon to check to make sure he's ok, and then he looks up and sees they're in Fairy and shivers slightly.

"Good job," Schechter says, to Greta. "I didn't even have time to leave you the map."

"Didn't need it," she says, happily.

"Hey man," Dewees says, wandering over to Frank. "Where are your clothes? And why are we all standing around in the middle of the street in front of the Fairy blockade. Haven't you heard it's dangerous?" Frank looks at Gerard and Dewees looks up, follows his gaze. When Dewees registers what Frank means, he says, in a voice so loud the neighbors probably heard it, "Sweet mother of our Midnighter souls."

Frank thinks it speaks for all of their reactions.

Gerard's inspection slows, and he finally, he seems to find what he's looking for and raises a hand. It looks for a minute like he's waving, or wiping something away from glass. A moment later, there's a blinding shimmer, and then a ripple of magic that travels out like a giant stone has been dropped into a pond, creating wave after wave. When Frank can focus again, there's not just the forest, but a clearing. Mikey is standing in a mirror image, opposite his brother, one hand raised. They both let their hands fall, and there's another shimmer, and several other people are revealed to be in the clearing.

"Hey, Mikey," Gerard says, and Frank can hear the unspoken Way brothers language just in the way Gerard says Mikey's name.

"Hey Gerard," Mikey says, his voice warm, a smile spreading across his face. Frank realizes, from the way Mikey was holding up his hand, that he must have known or felt Gerard was on the other side. Frank also wonders if Mikey has some sort of secret power, too.

"I need to know which court is in power," Gerard says, addressing the people on either side of his brother.

"No court holds power," a voice says. It takes Frank a minute to realize it's Alicia. She comes to stand beside Mikey.

"That is not in keeping with the rules," Gerard says. "Your community is out of balance."

"We did not bring it out of balance," Gabe says. Frank grabs Dewees' arm, and Dewees tries to shake him off.

"Is that - is that Gabe? I thought he was a vampire."

"Good way to hide that you're the head of the Unseelie Court," Dewees says. "Plus, it's his job to cause mischief. What better way to do that then be keeping secret who he is and what he's doing?“

Frank looks back up and Gabe winks at him. Frank's not sure if he should admire his genius or be offended he's been fooled.

"Release my brother. He belongs to himself."

"We are not keeping him here," Gabe says. "But now that you are here, he may leave."

"You coming?" Mikey says to Alicia.

"I need to take care of a few things first," she says.

Mikey kisses Alicia, holds his hand up as if to stop himself from walking into an invisible barrier, but nothing stops him, and he crosses over onto the street.

"I am here," Gerard says. "Now I would like to speak with Adam."

He's dragged forward by several Fairies, including William, who has a vice grip on Adam's arm. Adam looks as though he's taken a beating, but he still manages an air of defiance.

"And which court does Adam belong to?"

"I belong to neither court," Adam says. "Do you come here to claim power?" Adam asks. Gerard laughs, and it sends a shiver down Frank's spine.

"I came here for my brother," Gerard says. "And also to settle the dispute."

"Our dispute is not with you," Gabe says.

"I know," Gerard says. "I am here to settle it."

"You will take up this role?" Alicia asks.

"It has always been mine," Gerard says. His answer seems to please her, because she smiles wider. "Do you recognize me?"

"We do," Alicia says, "Because you rose from tomb into fire."

"Do you recognize me?" Gerard asks Gabe.

"We do," Gabe says, "Because you offered up your heart for sacrifice."

"Schechter," Frank asks. "What's going on?"

Schechter, to Frank's surprise, says, "I don't actually know any more than you do."

The sky's a pale pink, and Frank sees Schechter realize it the same time Bob does, but instead of setting off Frank's instincts to get inside, to run, he feels it pause. The sky hangs pink, twenty minutes before the first light of dawn, and it stops.

"That's incredible," Greta says, and she looks to Schechter, who shakes his head. Schechter looks to Gerard, who is standing, shoulders squared, facing off against Adam's cold stare. Frank watches as Alicia and Gabe see the sky, and Gabe's smile twists into something like appreciation.

"I am not threatened by you," Adam says.

"You should be," Gerard says.

"I don't respect your power," Adam says.

"If you claim to be from Fairy, even if neither court will claim you, then you will respect my power," Gerard says. "If you claim to be a Midnighter, even if they do not welcome you, then, in killing me, you have made me your peer, and by their laws, I might judge you. And if you claim to be governed by Daylighter law, even though neither of us can truly claim to be Daylighters any longer, then you will answer for my murder."

"I'm going to have to write that into the Mindless Act," Lindsey says.

"Are you kidding, I'm going to have to re-write whole chapters of the Clan Code after this," Pete says.

"Why isn't Adam fighting him?" Frank asks. "He looks so weak."

"Probably because Gerard's resurrection reclaimed most of his power," Greta says. "It was borrowed power, too, which wears on the vessel."

Frank thinks that Adam definitely looks like he's been used as a vessel.

"Who will deal with Adam?" Alicia asks.

"The Blind Order has a contract," Bob offers boldly into the silence.

"Do you recognize the Blind Order's contract?" Gerard asks.

"We do." Alicia and Gabe say together.

"Does the Daylighter administration recognize the Blind Order's contract?" Gerard asks.

Lindsey looks momentarily startled to be addressed in this manner by Gerard, but after a moment, she's the Governor once again and she says, "We recognize the Blind Order's contract."

"Then he will be taken under their supervision," Gerard declares.

Bob and Brendon step forward, flanking Gerard on either side. "I'm not going," Adam says.

"You have no power to refuse," Gerard says. There's a brief struggle that plays out over Adam's face, as though he's testing something. Magic, Frank thinks, all this magic he can't see, this thing going on in front of him that looks like a stare down and is probably, on some other plane of existence, an epic battle with fire and spells and sparks, Gerard standing still in the center like the eye of some awful storm.

Adam steps down from the woods, and into the street. The moment his feet hit the paving stones, Bob has his hand on Adam's arm and Brendon, though not touching Adam, is a step behind him, close as a shadow.

"This isn't over, Gerard," Adam says.

"No, I imagine it's not," Gerard says, and everyone watches in silence as Bob and Brendon walk Adam into the next cross street, where several cloaked figures of the Blind Order begin to surround them, like a highly choreographed swarm as they continue down the street and out of sight.

"Is the matter resolved?" Gerard asks, turning his attention back to Fairy.

"It is," Alicia says.

"It is," Gabe says. "Now put the fucking court system back in balance, I feel like I have the worst hangover in the world."

Gerard doesn't do anything like Schechter does when he's doing magic. It's not like any magic Frank's ever seen before. He just touches his fingers to an oak tree and something shifts. Frank isn't sure if it's the ground or the sky or something else underneath and around them.

Alicia steps out of the border of Fairy and waves to Gabe. "See you in a few hours," she says, and Gabe shakes his head.

"You can stay out longer, I don't mind."

"I think not," Alicia says, and with a complicated hand gesture, Gabe retreats into the trees without moving at all.

Alicia goes immediately to Gerard and kisses his cheek, and says, "You have no idea how pleased I am to see you."

"Oh, I think I have some idea," Gerard says. He's got his normal, wry smile now, he doesn't look any different to Frank, except that Frank knows he's still holding off daybreak. Everyone is standing around, stunned, looking at each other and Gerard.

"I'll be back home in a little bit," Mikey says.

"Mikey," Gerard says, a little scolding, and that's familiar.

"Gerard," Mikey says back, and then they smile at each other, and Mikey, Pete and Alicia head off toward Decaydance.

"I should get back to work, there's - well, there's a lot I need to do," Lindsey says. She holds out her hand and Gerard shakes it, giving her a fond smile. "I assume we'll be in touch?"

"Yes," Gerard says, and Lindsey comes over and shakes Frank's hand, too. Frank looks down at their joined hands, then up into Lindsey's face. She's grinning at him, and she squeezes his hand once before turning away and heading off.

"Here, I'll take you back," Greta says to Dewees. "Mr. Smith?"

"Could you bring me to the Undead Oyster?" he asks.

"Delighted," she says, "Mr. Stump?"

"Uh," Patrick says, "I guess to Decaydance?"

"So," Gerard says, grinning at Brian once Greta disappears with Dewees, Patrick and Spencer.

Schechter ignores him as though he hasn't spoken. "Maybe we could go inside now?" his eyes darting to the skyline where the day is still paused, sky pre-dawn pink even though it should be the beginning of full morning light.

"That would be wonderful, Brian," Gerard says.

Schechter does his magical thing and in a second, Frank blinks and they're inside the mansion. A moment later, Frank can feel the daylight again, like it's the time it's supposed to be, the sun where it's supposed to be.

"Frank," Gerard says, and then he leans in closer, "I find I'm quite tired. Would you be interested in joining me in bed?" Frank feels himself blush, feels a frisson of want in his belly. Schechter sighs and stomps off.

"Yes," Frank says. "I would be interested in that."  
Gerard has to go to a Blind Order safe house to question Adam the next evening, and he's as reluctant to leave Frank as Frank is to have him leave.

"He was too smug," Gerard says, "And he went too easily. I need to make sure the issue is as closed as we need it to be."

As Gerard's getting ready to go out, Dewees is mumbling something about the carriage house and needing Frank to tell him where to park the second carriage. Frank told him three times last week, but Schechter says that sometimes Dewees' orders are going to get lost for a little while. The curse messed with his ability to process the hierarchy of orders.

"It's a matter of clarity," Schechter says, adding, "Don't fuck with the carriages," as Frank's on his way out.

"I'm not going to do anything with the carriages except tell Dewees where to fucking park the second one, and it's not like there are a lot of choices. Quit bossing me around. I'm the head of household."

Schechter just laughs, but it makes Frank feel good.

Outside, the stars are sparkling in the deep blue night sky. It's early evening, which Frank loves it the same way he used to hate mornings when he was a Daylighter. He's thinking about asking Gerard if he'll let him spend a night in the greenhouse maybe once a week. It's Gerard's space and he doesn't want to intrude, but he feels more like he has a connection with it now; he even feels like some of the plants like him, and he'd miss it.

He hears Dewees in the carriage house but he can't see him when he walks in. The lantern's out, and even though Frank can see just fine in the dark, there are thick shadows between the carriages that are thick obscuring what's between them.

"Dewees," Frank says. "The carriage is fine."

"I know it's fine," Dewees says, though Frank can't tell where he is.

"Come on, man, where are you?" Frank says. "Did you forget that you remembered the carriage? Why'd you call me out here?"

"I'm sorry, Frankie," Dewees says, and steps out of the darkness. He's holding a stake.

"Holy shit," Frank says. "You're kidding, right, you're gonna stake me in the carriage house?" His mind's racing, because he wants to think it's a joke, but there's something off about the way Dewees is moving, someone wrong with his expression, and Frank knows he's in serious danger.

"Call for your sorcerer and you're dead before you can speak," he says.

"I'm not calling Schechter," Frank says. "You and I can work this out."

"I don't want to kill you," Dewees says, both stern and miserable.

"Ok, so, let's put away the stake. Tell me what's wrong, man, is this your master? Is this still part of the curse?"

"Of course it is, Frankie, did you ever know me to have a violent streak?"

"Only when someone was playing crap music next door," Frank says.

Dewees laughs and then says, face falling, "Don't do that."

"Don't do what?"

"Don't be my friend," Dewees shouts. "It's already hard enough."

"Look, wait," Frank says, wondering if he could run, if he really could shout for Schechter, "I'm faster than you. I was always faster than you even before you were a zombie."

"Except when you were sick," Dewees says mournfully.

"Right," Frank says. "So you're going to get your ass kicked if you try to stake me."

"I'm not," Dewees says, and suddenly Dewees is right there, stake above Frank's heart. Frank's mind goes blank. He can feel the wood pressing into his skin through the shirt.

"So, uh," Frank says, looking at the stake, up and Dewees' wild eyes. "That's some magic you got right there."

"Secondary curse," Dewees says, though it sounds almost normal, like Frank's best friend isn't about to kill him. "Activated when the first one was broken. I've got some kind of talisman or whatever embedded in me. I tried to dig it out," Dewees says, and Frank sees the torn up skin at the place where Dewees' shoulder meets his neck, shreds of flesh sticking to his shirt.

"Fuck, man, why didn't you say anything?"

"Because I can't, Frankie," Dewees says. Frank thinks for a minute that Dewees might actually cry, if he had tears. "Because I'm a stupid zombie without a will of my own."

"That's bullshit," Frank says. "If you don't have a will of your own, then how can you be my friend?"

"It doesn't matter," Dewees says. "You'll be dead soon."

"And what's killing me going to do?" Frank says, impressed with his own boldness.

"Hurt Gerard," Dewees says. "If he loses you, maybe he'll even leave the Midnighter community, and now that everyone knows he's not a Daylighter, then he'll be homeless, too."

"You sound like you went to the Adam Lambert school of villainy," Frank says. "You don't want to hurt Gerard."

"No," Dewees says. "But I have to."

"Ok, this is crazy," Frank says, and takes a step back. Dewees follows him as soon as he moves. The pressure of the stake never leaves Frank's chest. "James," Frank says.

Dewees closes his eyes. "Don't call me that."

"Fuck you, it's your fucking name."

"You never call me James," Dewees says. "When we met, you said it was too common."

"I know," Frank says. "But it's still your name."

"Shut up," Dewees says, and there's more magic in the air than there was a moment before. The point of the stake breaks through Frank's shirt and presses against his skin, burning hot like it's a poker from the fire.

"Tell me what your orders are," Frank says.

"There are too many," Dewees says. "Shut up," he adds, like Frank's talking to two of him.

"Tell me what your orders are, specific to me."

"I was supposed to kill the head of household," Dewees recites immediately. "Before Gerard....returned," Dewees says.

"And now?"

"Well obviously I can't kill him, but I can kill you. I considered Mikey for a while, but he's too close to Alicia. Never would have had a chance. But you. Former head of household, your death will break Gerard, you meet all the requirements."

"So you're going to stake me in the carriage house."

"And then set the whole thing on fire," Dewees says.

"You're one crazy motherfucker," Frank says and he starts to laugh. "I always wondered what would kill me. I thought I was a goner with all the lung stuff, like my Daylighter life was catching back up with me, but - this is so much more fucked up. You're going to stake me and then set my body on fire." Frank laughs.

Dewees presses the stake in and it breaks the skin. Frank feels the blood from the cut start to drip, feels the burn start to spread across his chest.

"What kind of wood is it?" Frank asks.

"I don't fucking know," Dewees says. He's staring at stake in his hand.

"You do," Frank says. "I'm pretty sure you were ordered to carve it special for this, too. It's not something you picked up in one of the black-market Daylighter stops, that's fucking hand-carved right there."

Dewees nods. "Hawthorn," he says after a moment. "From the same tree you used for the bonfire."

"Why?" Frank says.

"I don't know," Dewees shouts. "I don't know why he wants you dead, I don't know why he's using me, I just do what he says because I don't have any choice. Because I'm fucking weak. I wish you'd killed me when you found out. Before jail. I wanted the Blind Order to do it, wanted Bryar to fucking take my head off. But it would have been better if it was you. Balance the scales and all."

"You're a fucking idiot," Frank says.

"Yeah," Dewees says. Frank's chest is starting to ache. He feels the wood poisoning starting to spread out like tree roots under his skin, through his body.

"So do it," Frank says, "Push it all the way in." But then Frank can't help the giggle that escapes.

He thinks that will be his dying words, but Dewees snorts. "Never knew you wanted my wood," he says, and then his face kind of crumples. "I'm sorry, Frankie," he says, and presses the stake in harder. Frank thinks of Clan Code safety guidelines, the percentage of wood a vampire can tolerate, what happens the closer the stake gets to the heart, like an explosion in slow motion inside his whole being, slowly destroyed.

"I don't want you to die," Dewees says. He sounds broken.

"So don't kill me," Frank says. His voice is raspy, thin.

"I don't know how to stop," Dewees says. "I don't remember. I've been a zombie too long."

"Fucking stupid asshole," Frank says fondly. He feels the edges of his vision start to go grey. He wants to ask Dewees to tell Gerard something stupid and sentimental, but there's something else he needs to say first. "It's ok man, I forgive you."

Dewees abruptly steps back. A moment later the stake falls to the ground with a clatter, and then Frank stumbles backwards, hitting the carriage wheel hard and then sliding down.

Dewees is standing stock still, hands clenched at his sides. "Dewees?" Frank says. He tries to stand, stumbles. He feels drunk, or like he used to feel when he wasn't getting enough air, everything in his vision walking the thin line between sharp and transparent. "Dewees?" Frank calls out. He finally gets to his feet, stumbles forward, grabs Dewees by the shoulders. He doesn't move. His eyes are unfocused. Empty.

"Schechter!" Frank shouts as loud as he can. "Gerard!" He falls back against the carriage, kicks lose one of the wheel stops and the carriage starts to roll a little way down the driveway. "Schechter - "

But then Schechter is there, and Gerard, too. "Frank, what in he world - " Schechter starts shouting but then he goes quiet when he takes in the scene. He waves his hands in front of Dewees' eyes, shakes him, does the magic hand thing. Frank stumbles into Gerard's side. Schechter bends and picks up the stake. Gerard goes tense at Frank's side

"What did he do," Gerard says, his voice thunderous. He's pushing up Frank's shirt.

"Secondary curse," Frank says “That's what he said. A talisman."

Schechter passes his hand over the spot Dewees had tried to tear open on his neck.

"I'm ok, Gerard, I'm ok," Frank says as Gerard's hands travel all over Frank, searching for other injuries. "Schechter," Frank asks, because it's killing him not to know, "what happened to him."

"He disobeyed a direct order," Schechter says, awed.

"I didn't know zombies could do that," Frank says.

"Not all of them can," Schechter says.

"Inside, now," Gerard says to Frank.

"I'm fine," he says, a litany. "I'm fine." He even feels the dizziness receding.

"Can you help him?" Frank asks.

"There's nothing left to help," Schechter says. "Disobeying wipes the slate clean. He's all but gone."

"No," Frank says.

"Inside," Gerard hisses. "Frank, you're still bleeding and you probably have wood poisoning."

"Hawthorn," Schechter says.

"What?" Gerard asks sharply. Schechter holds out the stake to Gerard, who refuses to touch it. But he looks for a moment and says, "Brian, help me get him inside. James, too." Gerard says, and Frank lets Gerard drape him across his chest and drag him, stumbling, inside.  


>  **Excerpt from a Letter in Response to the Rites of Passage Overdue Notice From the Ancient Order of Magic For Pursuers of Level 5 Archmagister Designation**
> 
> As I do not believe that any of the other Level 5 Archmagister Candidates have, over the course of the past several months, guided their masters or heads of household back to life after a ritual murder, I do hereby request special dispensation and an extension from the Ancient Order of Magic for my unique26 circumstances.
> 
>   
> 26 And long-suffering.

  
Half an hour later, Victoria is digging slivers of wood from Frank's chest with a sharp needle and a thin pair of surgical tweezers.

"There can't be anymore wood," Frank says.

"Don't tell me what can and can't be true," Victoria says, and pulls out an especially deep piece. Frank winces "You were very nearly staked through the heart tonight and here you are, complaining about wood splinters. Which is another thing. The wood of the stake splintered like shattered glass."

"Maybe it was a bad stake," Frank says.

Victoria sighs. "You know, I'm just going to stop acting like anything that happens in this house is in any way predictable. Fine, you are the only vampire I've ever seen to be upright and coherent after a near-staking, and certainly the first one I've seen who has this much wood damage and isn't succumbing to a fever of wood poisoning. It's certainly a far cry from when we thought you had a Daylighter lung illness."

"Tell me I won't need to ice my chest," Frank groans.

"Bandages soaked in lavender oil and comfrey for the next three nights."

"Thank you," Frank says gratefully.

"You good?" Schechter says, coming in just as Victoria's applying the first bandage.

"Fine," Frank says.

"He is not 'fine'," Victoria says crankily. "But he will recover fully, much to my surprise, again."

"Good," Schechter says. "There's something I need you to see. Victoria," Schechter says, turning to her. "I'll have Cortez make you some refreshment and then we can talk about your compensation."

"You did not just offer to pay me off," Victoria says, offended.

"No," Schechter says, "But I had hoped you might accept our invitation to our research library. The rooms that had previously been locked?"

"Oh," Victoria says. "That would be completely acceptable," she says, holding back a smile.

Schechter assures her he'll be back in few minutes and calls for Cortez and then he helps Frank get his shirt on.

"Don't button it yet over the bandage yet," Victoria says, so Frank feels ridiculously with his shirt hanging half open, but he follows Schechter into the next room, where Greta is holding an apple in one hand and a tomato in the other, out in front of Dewees. Frank thinks that nothing's changed at all, Dewees still and empty, though the area on his shoulder is fresh with stitches and some sort of herb woven through them. And then Dewees raises his arm, eyes closed, and points at the apple.

"Good," Greta says.

"Fuck," Frank says. Dewees opens his eyes.

"Frankie," he says, wavering, and Frank runs forward and hugs him. "I'm sorry," Dewees says into Frank's shoulder.

"Shut your stupid fucking mouth," Frank says, and Dewees does.

"He doesn't mean it as an order," Greta corrects and Frank can feel Dewees stop holding himself back from talking.

Dewees says, "You're ok?"

Frank boggles.

"It turns out that Greta," Schechter jumps in, "is a necromancer."

"I thought you said you didn't know anything about zombies?" Frank asks.

"I read a book," Greta says.

"It's obviously some latent natural talent," Schechter says. "Hidden under her other sorcery. Fascinating."

"Don't talk about me like I'm a magical text," Greta snaps.

"I'm not," Schechter says.

"He's trying to say that it's hot," Frank points out. He feels both Greta and Schechter turn sharp, dangerous looks on him.

Greta then turns on Schechter. "Really? All this time? I thought you were being a critical dictator about technique and style."

"They were compliments," Schechter says quietly.

"You're terrible at them," Greta says.

"I know," Schechter says.

Dewees draws a heart with his index fingers in the air around them.

"So," Frank says, afraid to interrupt their moment, lest one of them start yelling at him. "You were able to fix him?" Frank says.

"It was more like," Greta looks at Dewees contemplatively, "Peeling away layers. But he was under there."

"She's the best master I've ever had," Dewees says. "Well, considering I've only had the one and he was evil, I don't have much in the way of comparison, but she's nice. And not as scary as the other one." He looks at Schechter and looks away.

"Residual fear built in from the curse," Greta says. "Since he was supposed to stay away from Brian at all costs."

"I don't know," Frank says. "He's kind of right, you know."

"That's enough," Schechter says to Frank. "Get out so Greta can do her work."

"We'll talk later, man," Frank says to Dewees.

"Are you saying we need couples' therapy?" Dewees says, "Because I think the problems are all with you." Greta tries to hide her laugh and Frank feels better by the moment.

"Your bandages are ok?" Schechter says out in the hall, pushing aside Frank's shirt. "You don't need more blood?"

"Stop fussing," Frank says.

"Stop giving me a reason to consider permanently employing a physician," Schechter says, and rubs his hand over his face.

"Thanks," Frank says. "For helping Dewees."

"Get out of here, go see Gerard," Schechter says. "He's in the greenhouse," Schechter says.

"I know," Frank says, and they smile at each other and Frank turns and walks down to the greenhouse door. He pulls back the sun curtain and the stars sparkle through the glass, the sky lightening toward blue as the night moves closer and closer to morning. "Gerard?" he calls out, stepping in. Gerard's paging through his journal, holding it as he paces back and forth between the tables.

"Frank," Gerard says, and then he's setting the book down, rushing right over. His fingers go to the bandage, tracing the edges. He searches Frank's face. "You're ok?"

"Victoria's sure," Frank says, and he grabs Gerard's hand, pressing his hand over it over the bandage.

"Oh my god, Frankie," Gerard says, and then he's pulling Frank close, his breath tickling Frank's neck. They stand there like that, clinging to each other, and then Gerard breaks away, walks over to his book and begins paging through. "Did Victoria tell you why the stake splintered like that?"

"She didn't know," Frank says. Gerard flips until he finds the page he's looking for and then he holds it open to Frank. "Hawthorn," Frank says, reading. "Also known as the hinge on the door of the year, or the fairy bush." Frank looks up. He knows he's supposed to be answering Gerard's question about the stake but he has a question of his own. "Are you Fairy?"

"No," Gerard says. "Listen, Frank, can we sit?"

Frank nods, and follows Gerard to the chairs at the front. Frank can't help but check the plants as they pass, the poppy, the rue, the lily of the valley. He feels Gerard watching him and when he looks up, Gerard is smiling a small, guarded smile. The stars are growing paler as the sky lightens.

"So what - " Frank says, but Gerard silences him with a hand on his knee.

"My grandmother used to tell me a story about how she used to be a judge. It was years before I was born, and I thought she worked for the Daylighter government. I thought she'd retired to garden. This used to be her greenhouse. Bigger, more beautiful. It was amazing. A few of the plants are ones she cared for and planted, some in the yard, too. Including the hawthorns on the west border. One day when I was a teenager, she waited until my mother and my brother were out at some school event and she took me into the greenhouse and told me a story. She said that the world used to look very different. The creatures we called Midnighters now were trying to find how they wanted to live, like rebellious teenagers, lashing out to find who they were. But there were older creatures, older communities that were already established, had been coexisting in silence with Daylighters for years. She told me that the only way that had happened was that in times of transition there were people who were made to be peacemakers, who were given immense power in order to keep balance. She said that's what she used to do, but it had been years since anyone had needed her services. And then she told me that someday the need would arise again, and it would be my turn. Have you ever heard the myth of the Green Man?"

"So that's what you are?" Frank says. "You're a nature god?"

"Not a god, no" Gerard says. "I'm not really a Midnighter, at least not as any of the classifications go. But I'm not a Daylighter. I'm here to help everyone co-exist. And I'm not Fairy, though my powers have the most impact there, because they're the oldest, and their magic is the closest to the earth magic."

"So why didn't you use that power earlier? When Pete was creating the Clan Code? Before, when it was all chaos?"

"Because I didn't want that kind of power," Gerard says. "You have no idea how strong I am, what I could do if - " Gerard stops.

"Hey," Frank says. "Hey, it's ok."

Gerard takes a shaky breath. "I didn't have the power before," Gerard says. "That's the main reason. It was always waiting for me, but it was like a bulb underground. It was dormant until spring had come. My grandmother told me that when I needed the power, I'd know what to do. There were three things I had to do that were all steps on the way to claiming it, and each one revealed a layer of it. The first was that I had to bring someone back to life."

"Me," Frank says, after a shocked moment.

"I didn't just save you with the Trading," Gerard says. "I think we both know that by now. I used my magic, I used my blood to save you. And it changed me. Alicia could see it. So could Adam."

"So that's why his plan involved killing you - "

"Yes," Gerard says. "I'd made myself vulnerable to him, and visible, because I hadn't done the rest. I was revealing my vulnerability and resisting my power. The second thing I had to do was declare myself. That's why I couldn't tell you, Frank. Doing so would have been the second step."

"It would have made it true," Frank says. "That's what you said to me."

"I wouldn't admit to myself who I was," Gerard says. "I was clinging to the fact that I could be whatever I wanted. I was sure that, even though I had saved you, I could still keep the life I'd had. I thought I had it all under control. But then you were sick. And then Mikey. And then I started to understand Adam's plan. I declared myself to Adam, but he didn't understand Fairy lore. He just knew that killing a Green Man released an enormous amount of power. He wasn't raised in the lore, though, he didn't know what Alicia and Gabe and everyone else in Fairy knew instinctively, that everything has a cycle. I knew it, though. That's why I let him take me. Because that was the third thing I had to do, Frank. The thing I had to do before I could become who I was meant to be. The third thing I had to do was die."

Frank realizes he's knee to knee with Gerard and they're staring at each other. He doesn't know how long it's been since Gerard spoke.

"You came back."

"Yeah," Gerard says. "I came back with the power I needed to set everything right. To restore balance. I had a journey I had to make, and I needed the time to do it to make sure it was right. If I didn't do it right, I didn't get to come back."

"Is that why your grandmother died? Because she didn't have someone to help her come back?"

"Oh, no, Frank," Gerard says. "She died because everyone does. Eventually it's everyone's turn."

"So now, what do you have to do? Do you have to move to Fairy? Or out of the Midnighter community?"

"No," Gerard says. 'I'm staying here. Now I need to find out what it's really like to live as myself." After a minute, Gerard says, "I'm sorry I couldn't tell you this before. I was wrong to think I could keep it from you. As soon as I brought you back, I should have done what I needed to do then. But I was scared. Of dying. Of having this power, of not using it right. I was scared of all the changes I could make. But you showed me, once again, it was you who showed me I had to take responsibility. Do you know why my blood was making you sick?"

"Was it because of the power?"

"No," Gerard says. "It's because it was healing you. It healed the wound from Ryan's arrow, and then it started healing all your old Daylighter scars. It looked like you had all the illnesses again, because it was writing over them. Then it finally went and took away all your scars. It's still working now," Gerard says. "You should have died from the stake," Gerard says, "Even if it didn't reach your heart. But your body took apart the wood and didn't let it hurt you."

"Because of you?" Frank says, barely a whisper.

"Because of you," Gerard says. "Because of what you are now." Frank's frowning, and he can feel Gerard look at the confused expression on his face. Gerard abruptly looks away. "Frank," he says, his voice strange. "Look out the window."

Frank looks up. He scans the yard, the horizon, the orange and pink lighting up the trees, the yellow across the sky. "It's dawn," Frank says, stunned.

"Quite a bit past, now," Gerard says.

"You - " Frank says, thinking of how Gerard had held back the dawn.

"No," Gerard says with a smile. "It's not right for me to get in the way of the natural cycle like that except for special circumstances."

"So this isn't a special circumstance?" Frank says. The sky is blue above the trees. He hadn't even noticed. He should have felt dawn, that was a vampire thing. He always knew it. He can feel the sun on his skin, now, but it just feels warm.

Gerard shakes his head. "This is just the morning."

"So what does this," Frank says and realizes his mouth is dry. "Did your blood also heal the fact that I was a vampire?"

"Sort of," Gerard says.

"Sort of!" Frank says, with a hysterical laugh.

"Vampirism isn't something you heal," Gerard says. "It's another kind of Midnighter magic that transforms the individual. I had no idea that bringing you back would mean. I thought it was just going to restore the life you had, but instead it was just another kind of transformation."

He stands, and Frank does, too. Gerard leans in and kisses him softly. Frank kisses back, happy for the contact, for how it reassures his panic, how it grounds him. "You ok?" Gerard says.

Frank has no idea. "The sun's so warm," Frank says. Gerard laughs delighted, and kisses Frank's cheek. Frank suddenly looks behind him, eyes all over the greenhouse. "I've never seen the greenhouse in the daylight."

"You haven't, have you?" Gerard says. "You have to see the Aurora Morning Glory. It's flowers turn each color of the sky as the horizon lightens." It's Gerard's familiar greenhouse frenzy, rushing around with sheer focused delight. "Oh, and you need to see the Hirogohan bonzai, it whistles on Tuesdays at noon, and the Lurking Flax cries if it rains." Gerard stops and realizes Frank is still standing, frozen, where he left him.

"Oh, Frank I'm so sorry, I know you liked being a vampire, and now I've changed you."

"Into what?" Frank says softly.

"I don't know," Gerard says.

"Show me the Aurora Morning Glory," Frank says, because he doesn't know what else to say. Gerard seems to understand, and leads him down several rows. The greenhouse looks completely different in the daylight, but still somehow familiar, plants that are Midnighter plants in their dormant day states, colors brighter in the Daylighter plants, leaves that had been closed were open, lifting up to the sun.

Frank passes the Lily of the Valley that Donna had given him, its flowers opening, the Creeping Bark-Curler curled around its vase.

"Gerard," he says, and Gerard stops and turns, and Frank steps into his space. Gerard's breath hitches, and he grins at Frank. Frank wants to say everything, wants to reassure Gerard and be reassured, wants to tell him everything he's ever held back. He kisses Gerard, fingers tight on his shoulders, and Gerard kisses him long and deep. Frank pulls back and lets Gerard continue leading him toward the flowers, down the long aisles. He stops at the basin of water for the cuttings because something's caught the corner of his eye.

He doubles back, and peers in and realizes that what he saw is his reflection.

"Frank," Gerard says, stopping when he realizes. Gerard's reflection is behind him a second later, over his shoulder. "Tell me what you see," Gerard says.

Frank looks at the watery shape of his face, his eyes, his hair. He hasn't seen his reflection in years.

"Something new," he says.


End file.
